*hugs!* Thanks, Rory.
And yeah, Anne, it was definitely the right decision. It would have upset her completely unnecessarily -- I mean, why go on and on about my worries about the frequency of the time they schedule together when they haven't even managed to successfully schedule *any* time together yet, not even once?
Why worry about the frequency of their time together at all, maybe. I've been toying, today, with the idea of trying to do away with my need for their intimate time to be equal to or lesser than our intimate time. I don't know if it's a limit I should or can discard, but I'm trying to look at things objectively. When thoughts bubble up about the two of them, I try to ask myself -- what if I just didn't give it a moment's thought, what if I *only* focused on what she and I do together? Well, really, I've been trying not to think about it at *all*, and indeed I had a very busy and productive day, but it's in my mind a lot of the time regardless.
I think the hardest part of what's happening right now is coming face to face with the fact that I've been working under some false assumptions. She and I haven't had much sex this year. That's been tough for me, wanting and loving her as much as I do, but I've dealt with it by telling myself, among other things, "well, she just doesn't care that much about sex." When we have had sex, she hasn't been touching me as much as I've been touching her, and she hasn't gone down on me at all in months, whereas I don't miss an opportunity to do that to her (I don't mean to make it sounds like she's not a giving lover, she's done a lot to help me explore the things I've wanted to explore, it's just the facts). When I've wondered about the disparity there, I've thought to myself, "well, it's her anxiety that makes it hard for her to be the active one."
And now she's desperate to have sex with this dude. So, I guess she does care about sex. And she went down on him (that was all they did the one time they've been together so far, actually), and I know she very much wants to do that again, so I guess she doesn't have that much trouble being the active partner after all. All these things I've been telling myself to remind myself that it wasn't me that was the problem. But it *was* me.
Fuck, that was tough to write. I hope my roommates can't hear me crying.
I wish it didn't matter to me so much. I don't know why it does, really. I suppose it's an ego thing, to need to feel wanted.
"But it *was* me." <-- No, that's not true. Or, at least, it's more complicated than that. There are SO many factors here. One, my gender. She's not as attracted to women as she used to be. That's not about me as a person, even if it does change things about how she and I interact. I am much more than my gender. Two, my importance in her life. She's said, multiple times, that, ironically, it's harder for her to be as free and easy with the people who mean more. So, we're back to the anxiety, and a sort of mental block that she has. She's described to me before how she's been oddly inhibited and shy with Eric, her own husband, at times. It's *good* that I matter to her, even if it makes things harder. Three, she doesn't have to chase me. I'm here, she has me, I'm throwing myself at her. The chase is exciting, and Dexter has *really* made her chase him, he's thrown up all of these concerns and roadblocks and has finally, finally, let her get past his barriers... of course that's enticing. Four, sort of a subsection of three, NRE. She actually said herself, the other day, that she recognizes that there's an NRE factor here and that she's trying hard to keep a handle on it.
"But it *was* me." <-- No, it wasn't. If you weren't you, she wouldn't be trying at all. She wouldn't have planned her birthday around being intimate with you and her husband. She wouldn't have a date planned with you next week. She wouldn't be talking about spending her first night away from her baby to be with *you* if *you* were a problem and she didn't want to be close to you! Yes, she's had a harder time being intimate with you lately. Yes, she doesn't seem to have those difficulties when it comes to Dexter. But that does NOT mean that she doesn't want you.
Ok, gonna switch back to first person now, talking to one's self always comes off a little crazy...
That was really helpful, though.
This is still a period of transition. When I started this blog, she and I weren't having sex at all, we rarely even made out. Now, I have all sorts of delicious recent memories focused around her that are as X-rated as they come. Things are shifting rapidly. She is rediscovering her sexuality. She is experiencing her first successful seduction of another person, experiencing her first time with a man other than her husband
in her entire life. It's kind of a big deal for her, understandably. Simultaneously, she's starting to come into her own as a dominant, just beginning to flex those muscles, with me. She's re-learning how to be with a woman when, to her shock, she's not as bisexual as she used to be, and she's doing it with me. While juggling her life partner and her baby and her job and the rest of her life.
One thing that I don't know how to react to at all is the idea that Dexter might help bring us closer. On the surface, of course, that sounds wholly positive. But, like, if she's suddenly more eager to schedule dates with me (this upcoming date being the first one in recent memory that she took the initiative to suggest days for rather than me being the one to do that), how much of that is because she wants to be with him, and knows that in order to do that without alienating me she needs to schedule time with me too? How depressing, to only be remembered because someone else has set her alight and she's trying to get the logistics in order. Or perhaps it's not that, perhaps it's just spillover NRE, her excitement for him making her more excited about sex and sexuality in general. That wouldn't be so bad, if it was just sort of a happy side-effect. OR, perhaps this is something that I should really try not to over-think and fruitlessly speculate about...
Positive mindset. Big picture. Don't forget, even for a moment, the way she looked at me at her family birthday party. Don't forget the soft touch of her lips to mine, again and again, when I left the other day. Don't forget that she loves me. And that I love her. And that we're going to keep making this work, together.