Sex drive, love & confusion

Imagination

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What do you know about this matter? Let me tell you my story:

This is the continuation of my two other threads (search this forum for "imagination"). In short, my girl friend Claudia and me were involved in a few threesomes with a friend of mine and she fell in love with him (one could say). But his interest was rather sexually, so he doesn't really want so much contact to her. At a party a few weeks ago, Jan was kissing and hugging another woman and told her to leave them alone, this was very sad for Claudia. She still loves him.

Recently, I had a threesome with Jan and his love affair (not the one mentioned above), Susanne, who is visiting him (she lives far away). First, I should have told Claudia before. Second I appreciate the openness of Stephan and Susanne to share with me and I chose to join, so I can't really complain. But the same as the threesomes before, this was exclusively about sex. I get the feeling, this is about dominance and conquest to some part, and again I felt overcharged. What I had rather liked to experience would have been cuddling and hugging and so on. Nevertheless, I joined the sex game.

I still feel attracted to Susanne and she is a person I love and admire and it was very special to be with her. So the next day, I felt like I was in a void and i was sad. So, somehow, I might feel like Claudia with Jan. If Jan would been have really more interested in Claudia, this would have been a poly relationship. I see now (once again), the differnce between a plane open relationship or swinging and polyamory. My problem is, that I very likely behave in accordance to rather superficial sexual attraction.

What I realize is, that women notice this and this is why I didn't find any partner (be it sexually or otherwise) in the past months. So lately I focused more on self love and on just paying attention and talking to women. And soon this meeting with Jan and Susanne took place. I will try to get close slowely and carefully and only date a woman that I love. Besides, just touching each other without asking for any more, I think it is something which this society lacks.

A problem for me is, that I don't want to restrict myself, to decide in advance. Yet regarding to sexuality, not acting too fast could be a good principle. If someone insists on a one night stand, it is not someone for me. I wonder, how could I try (and have done in the past) sexual encounters with women I didn't love, but whom I observed as being nice or good looking or interesting in some other way? Problems must arise then. Yet, with sexuality, it's not so easy, because it always means joy to some degree. Yet like Red Pepper said, one should think to whom one want to open up so much. I felt really touched by Susanne, now there nothing, I didn't know her before and I hope that we at least can get along with each other or may be, become friends (unfortunately, she goes back home soon). What I didn't like with this latest threesome was, that my pleas to slow down and just to caress each other were ignored, and almost ridiculed. Yet to fondle each other in a loving way can be more intimate than having sex. The most intimate moment I had with susanne was when I lay on her side and I merged with her in a very pleasent way.

What I forgot to write about, how Claudia reacted, when I told her, what had happened the night before. She was really mad for a few hours. Then she calmed down an forgave me. I'm really thankful for that.

She still rejects the idea of a poly relationship, yet it feels like, she is open about alternative ways and with Jan, this was proven. Unfortuntely, I guess she still suffers from the rejection. And sometimes Claudia denoted, that she might agree with poly. She is ambiguous. I'm afraid to talk with her and I know I should. It is not so easy, she feels uncomfortable or gets angry when I mention the topic. Though I'm sure, to open up to other lovers solves tensions (already did) in our relationship and even my latest experience somehow revealed truth. I don't want to end the relationship with Claudia and I love her and at the same time, I would like to share my love with someone else (whom I could interact wiht in a different way than with Claudia, may be, someone who is about as old as I am and not nearly 15 years younger).

The most important thing I have learned lately is that love for myself is different from love to others, it reflects directly. When I'm patient and loving with myself, the same applies to others. It is not easy to deal with my esperience with Jan and Susanne and I tend to blame myself for what happened. No, I love myself for who I am, even if I feel inadequate – or more so because of it.
 
I'm finding it a little hard to follow. Is there a question here? Perhaps some clarification? It sounds like you and your girlfriend had a threesome, she fell in love with the man, your friend and he didn't with her. You had a threesome with this man involved again with another woman and you feel in love with the woman. You did this behind your girlfriends back. You were riducled for wanting some touch and closeness rather than sex.

Okay, so let's say what I got out of this is the case for you. I wonder if your girlfriend is feeling sad, cheated on and rejected by you, and the other man. I would imagine she is dealing with the emotions behind having to deal with the fact that you had another threesome with this man to which she was not involved. Also that you fell in love. That's what, three hard things to deal with? Wow!

As for you... I'm not following what is going on for you. It sounds like you and your friend are very different. He enjoys casual encounters with women. You enjoy depth and connection with them. No wonder he thought it okay to ridicule. If I were in your position I would not engage with him oin this way again and explain why. Friends don't ridicule, they respect and take into consideration peoples feelings. At least in my world anyway.

Could you say more about your inner love. I'm not following that part. Thanks :)
 
What do I mean with my inner love? What I think about myself and about others has an influence on the reality that is created. I watch my inner dialogue and give myself a positive imput. Just like a lover who supports me, comforts me, helps me to find a better way. In this way I can change the dialogue, that otherwise takes place rather automatically. I keep on telling me that I love myself.

Sometimes I can't stop being angry at myself, critizise me or blame myself. Then I just accept this and tell myself, that I love me despite my complaining about what I couldn't get done etc. Loving myself also means being in the present. It means to step out of competition, accepting my mistakes and weaknesses, being able to laugh about myself.

It doesn't mean, that I'm totally uncritical about myself, it means to be critical in a constructive way.

There is another way to give love and energy to myself. I imagine – more precisely: I know, that it happens -, that I spread love into the environment - while telling myself "I love me" and I get love, a matter out of a sphere that can't be explored scientifically. It's an energy that is all around us but most of us forgot to notice. Breathing deeply at the same time helps too. In connection with plants and animals we can feel it. It's in the air, in the rays of the sun, it's all around us. We're not seperated, we only think we are. Loving a human being is a very special kind of love, but loving a tree or a bird or the wind comes from the same substance. Loving humanity as such means loving myself. Love is only a word, what I try to tell is beyond language, but it can be hinted at with words. Words are a medium for transmitting information.

Now back to the other parts of my posting. What you say about my latest experiences is true. You could follow me and gave the answer already.

My behaviour lacked any respect to Claudia and she feels betrayed and neglected. I was driven by my senses and by my selfishness, and I forgot about my responsibility and about the voice of my heart. I should have given more place for these aspects in my last posting

Jan and Suzanne treated me more like someone to play with than like a friend.

My impression about the threesome was confirmed at a party, where Suzanne wasn't interested in me at all, she didn't even want to have a chat with me. Suzanne was jealous of Claudia and Jan was jealous of me, even though both weren't interested in us.

There was a long time friend of mine at the party, Jeniffer (Claudia only knows her a little). I had a good time with Jeniffer, we talked and danced and hugged each other and got quite close . We might have gone further, but I didn't want to end up cheating again. Her attitude might be open towards polyamory; she has a lover – who was also at the party - and its an open relationship; he is a good friend and compagnion to her, she said. It felt very good to be with Jeniffer. Later Claudia got mad - after I had told Claudia and Jeniffer that I would be delighted if Jeniffer would visit us and if the two women could get more acquainted with each other -. Later Jeniffer told me, that she feels very uncomfortable about Claudia and a little theatened.

At home, Claudia attacked me physically several times (not for the first time in our relationship) out of some minor reasons I can't recall (later she said my encounter with Suzanne was one of the reasons). Then, because I lay on an extra matress (I wanted to be alone) she started to kick me. I understand, that Claudia feels insulted, because of what I had done with Suzanne and we talked about it, but I didn't deserve a treatment like that. I said I would like to break up our relationship or that we should better have a break for a longer time. Claudia ignored most of what I said and told me, we would just have a little break. She didn't fully grasp my explanations, that violence is absolutely no option. I just talked to her on the phone and told her the same as before and made it clear, that I need a polyamorous relationsship to be happy. She said, I could see other women, but if we became intimate, she would leave me.

I guess, often it is a communication problem, I never made it clear enough (and she didn't want to listen), how I would like to be in a relationship with her. I still feel deeply connected with her and I would like to keep that connection, but I get the impression, that I'm not capable to deal with her mental conflicts and the hurt from the not so recent past (being neglected and later seperated from her father and other sad experiences, family situations etc), that lead to her extreme outbursts of rage and fury. This was the first time it happened after about two months; lately, we got along much better than at the end of last year.

What I experience is that there are not many but a few people who like a loving, heart sharing "lifestyle" like polyamory. Sex and possession is in the centre of most peoples focus. When we – the few - celebrate this kind of love, we make other people wonder and some change their opionion or even their behaviour. Others despise or ridicule us or get mad. We should be very careful with whom we socialize and be specific about our attitude and our intentions, so we don't betray anyone (which means that we betray ourselves as well).

Sometimes, the best way to learn is by doing and – if we can't see it otherwise – by making mistakes.

Any guess, how I should continue to cope with Claudia or what I should do? Often love relationships and friendships end in a bitter way, how can we do it differently? Or is it to late to keep up the love and compassion?

Sorry, if I repeated myself nce in a while. I believe polyamory is easy to understand. It is a different thing to know what it means and to act openly and with respect and to take the risk of being rejected . We were raised to conform to a world where fear, selfishness, dishonesty, materialism and possessive attitudes are the norm. We can change it.
 
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Sometimes the most loving path, for both of you, is to end the conflict and lovingly move away from each other. Its fairly obvious it won't be mutually loving as an ending... but all you can do is be loving on your side of things - but as relationships go Claudia is being physically abusive - there is NO excuse for this.. and the most loving thing you can do for BOTH of you is to leave...

to not accept that behaviour AT ALL.
 
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True. I will miss her, but what else can I do? May be she finds someone else, who deals with her in a different way, so she doesn't get abusive any more, who shows her things she needs to see, that I couldn't communicate to her. I tried a lot to save our love relationship, it's too much for me. Another time, we might try again, but for now it's all messed up.
 
.... this was exclusively about sex....

What can this possibly mean? Exclusively about sex? As though sex were not connected with everything else, whether people happen to notice it or not? Why do people almost ubiquitously divide "sex" from "everything else" -- like loving, like intimacy, like closeness, like tenderness...? Why?!
 
What I had rather liked to experience would have been cuddling and hugging and so on. Nevertheless, I joined the sex game.

Right. Sex game. a "sex game" involves this thingy we call "sex is something apart from cuddling and hugging" (caring? loving? tenderness? kindness? vulnerability...?) ... Seems most/many of us are having some difficulty relating our skin to our skin! Why not let our skin -- therefore -- be our skin?!
 
Seems most/many of us are having some difficulty relating our skin to our skin! Why not let our skin -- therefore -- be our skin?!
I was thinking just a few hours ago, what we experience directly by our skin is true, the information we exchange with words is less real. Our whole body is a unity. I believe when we touch each other, our bodies communicate with each other as well as our minds, our souls...It's all one. And certainly, I'm responsible for the experiences I make with my body, no doubt about that. My sexual respectively my erotic experiences are a reflection of my own state of mind - and the state of the society around me -, which applies to any kind of communication. In is out and out is in, one could also say above is below and good is bad. Our thinking based on the long time ruling of the catholic church has twisted many things, particulary when it comes to erotic pleasures, the division of mind/ spirit and body. Similar developments appeared with the invention of money. Our bodies are representations for abstract money value. The body is a form for value and each organ is only an expression of the value (money number "....") of the whole body. These forms of value exist only in what we might call spirit or mind, be it psychology and its different definitions of consciousness, natural sciences (numbers, modells for explaining reality with no regard to life as such), any other sciences and religion. Unreal terms are exchanged for other irrational terms with no relation to the life-process as a whole. Man, and his role as the observer is neglected and he becomes part of a static definition of reality. Illness is the result, as the body reacts on the conditions. It's a disruption, a compartmentalization like in business, in bureaucracy, in the health system and in all institutions, in all the money ruled structures, that's what we grew up with. We should ask ourselves, what processes take place in our lives, why, do we want this, how can we practically make things better (turn illness into a weapon against the norm) in the relations we live in?
 
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The Problem is not sex and touch (united), they are good for us. The problem is that, what happens around the erotic part. We behave and think like piggy banks, our (social) values get decreased or increased. This society is based on flaw or deficit, so everyone seeks to get enough for oneself and is worried to sell himself/ herself for a cheap price or to loose, what one owns. See what happened in my surroundings the past days.

Of course, there could be enough love and touch for everyone. They lied to us and told us, we should deal economically with love. People who act different are often regarded to as cheap, sluts, superficial etc.
 
Man, and his role as the observer is neglected and he becomes part of a static definition of reality. Illness is the result, as the body reacts on the conditions. It's a disruption, a compartmentalization like in business, in bureaucracy....

This is not quite correct. In illness, the disruption, that can't manifest otherwise, shows itself in a different apparition. One could say, illness ist the disruption unified, but, as we know, it's not the solution, it's more like an expression of an antagonism. Touch and making love are ways to become one and overcome compartmentalization. At the same time, they (more precisely: the motives and how people react to body-love) can be triggers for conflict and illness. When we define illness as movement and change (in any way), making love belongs to the progressive side of illness.

See: http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4817
 
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recent changes

I talked to Claudia and said, I don't want to be in a relationship with her for the next months and that in any way, I won't be mono. She should first deal with her problems without blaming me and second consider, if she wants to be in a poly relationship. She kind of ignored what I said and refused my suggestions. I'm visiting a friend in a different city, where I met an internet aquaintance, Lisa, who is in an open relationship. We got along very well and even though we both didn't plan to, we made love, which was very special and harmonic. This date made me feel very good. Her friend, Norman (who yet lives in another city) , wasn't very happy about what happened, because Lisa had informed him only very vaguely in advance, what was going on and what might happen. I talked a long time with Norman at the phone and I think it was good for both of us. Now I'm kind of anxious to talk to Claudia again, when I'm home or may be, I'll just wait until she calls. How do you think did I manage the situation and what else could I do?
 
I believe he broke up with her, but she didn't accept it. I have a friend who has broken up with his girlfriend 5 times and each time she refuses to accept that it is over and guilts him into resuming the relationship by telling him that it wasn't really fair of him to break it off with her. Now he thinks he's going to marry her because he thinks that he should because of the amount of time they've been together.... to me this is a huge red flag. Anyone who refuses to be broken up with has some serious issues.
 
I believe he broke up with her, but she didn't accept it. . . . Anyone who refuses to be broken up with has some serious issues.

Ha! I know I've tried not to accept being dumped in the past and it never worked. How is that possible? The dumper says, "This is it," and I've said, "I can't accept that," but all I got were looks that said, "What are you crazy? I'm breaking up with you, you can't do anything about it!" And, of course, I knew it was just a last-ditch effort on my part to salvage it, but how can anyone say, "Oh, all right. I won't break up with you now, since you don't want me to." HUH????
 
Ha! I know I've tried not to accept being dumped in the past and it never worked. How is that possible? The dumper says, "This is it," and I've said, "I can't accept that," but all I got were looks that said, "What are you crazy? I'm breaking up with you, you can't do anything about it!" And, of course, I knew it was just a last-ditch effort on my part to salvage it, but how can anyone say, "Oh, all right. I won't break up with you now, since you don't want me to." HUH????


It doesn't make alot of sense to me, except to say that the first time she cried, he felt bad, they ended up sleeping together, and he "couldn't go through with it" because they'd just screwed... since then he's managed to break up with her 4 more times, each time it's lasted less than a month and all the while she was telling him that he wasn't really giving their relationship a chance, that he wasn't being fair, that he needed to put in as much effort as she is, etc.... mind you, she's a foreign national, here on a student visa, they've been dating for 5 years and are very different people, and have little in common (she resents his gaming and there is a language barrier), but she wants to marry him and seems to make him feel like there was an expectation of marriage down the road because he slept with her to begin with.
 
Thanks a lot you for the answers here's my reply

I told Claudia before I went visiting my friend, what I wrote in my other post. I will spend about 3 month without going out with her and likely date other women/ start a relationship. Meanwhile she can think about her opinion of a poly relationship and she can work on her problem of freaking out and attacking me. I will contact her and ask her about her interim position, when I come back from my trip in 14 days, (which will be from now next weekend). She said, she would accept everything, besides that I would have intimate contact with other females. I said, I might do this anyway and she should consider, if she can accept it. So I told her quite clearly where I'm at and I didn't cheat. Nevertheless she might have overheard my statement. After the three month, we could try again - if she wishes to -, but as partners and not as exceptional lovers. I still have a lot of feelings for Claudia, but I rather would quit this relationship, if it goes on like this. I feel trapped somehow, I would like to help her with her mental problems, but I don't know how and over and over again - in between very beautiful times - she makes me feeling down by trying to control me and questioning my freedom.
It's like Brigids Daughter said, I broke up a few times in the last may be 6 months, but each time immediately afterwards by showing excessive sadness or anger (and by hugging me etc) or both she convinced me, to try again. May be, that's the reason, why I repeated my last decision on the phone. Before I talked to her on the phone, I told her the same personally but she put so much pressure on me, that I couldn't show her, that I really mean it. Possibly, she didn't take me seriously on the phone, too. (For about the past two weeks now, we didn't talk at all, didn't talk at the phone and I'm in a different city).
A major reason why I stayed with her so long is, because I feel sorry for her and I know how it feels to be in a serious mental crisis like that. I love her, but the love is hurt in different ways by her behaviour. It won't be easy for me (and for her), to get through with our seperation, yet I feel it is better for me and for her too. I guess she needs and she even wants to see some consequences, when she plays with me and provokes me again and again. I know she has other sides that are really positive, caring and creative. She has to get there in a process by herself or may be with someone else. I don't know if our bonds are strong enough, that we can have a relationship in a different form later. May be I'm naive, but at least I want to give it a chance. I feel, I also have to work on myself, because otherwise, similar incidents/ projections like with Claudia might happen again in my life. I think another way to prevent this are poly relationships, because a poly partner won't make me feel that dependent. Someone who manipulates the other to stay only with him/ her, won't very likely agree to a poly relationship.
The reason why I broke up with Claudia two weeks ago is: we got into an argument and she started to get aggressive and she didn't stop, even after I asked her to. That's why I lay down on the ground next to the bed. Her reaction was, that she jumped on me and kicked me with her feet in the back which hurt. Then I said, now our relationship is over. This made her freak out even more and she started to scream very load. So I decided to comfort her and to lay down beside her in the bed. I didn't really want to do it, it was an emergency solution. The next day I told her, what I wrote her before.
 
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