so i had some questions about definitions, and how things fit into them.
as i understand it, in a triad all three parties are romantically and sexually involved. and in a vee 2 parties are each separately involved with the 3rd.
so my questions are first, is that correct? and second if vees are not all romantically and sexually involved, how do the living arrangements pan out?
Yes, it is correct. As for how it pans out, it depends. For a vee, some people have two rooms for the branches, and the hinge picks which room they sleep in (or follow a schedule). Some people have one room per person, although it seems to be rarer (I also know monogamous people who sleep in separate rooms, this also seems rarer, but it works great for them. It feel more new, more like a date when they go to each other's bedrooms, and they have their own space too.)
i ask these things because it seems R, K, and I may be becoming a vee. Although I've not counted out C yet (K's partner before this all came about, and still partner) so we may be a quad, or 2 vees...
It sounds like an N to me (also called Z).
anyway, my other question being about living arrangements.. in a vee, do the 3 parties tend to live together? and, not being romantically or sexually involved, how difficult is that on the 2 parties that are not the hinge?
It really depends. On top of the configurations I mentioned earlier, you also have vees who share a bed, vees who share a bedroom with more than one bed, or vees who live in more than one place (two or three). And I'm sure there are more! With polyamory you really get to pick what works best for you. You should feel free to experiment until you find what works best.
really i'm trying to come to grips with sex in my house, sex that doesn't involve me.
I thought I'd take this opportunity to say that vee doesn't always mean sex that doesn't involve everyone. It's possible for people A, B and C to have sex, where A and C have sex with B but not each other, and B is kind of the center or attention. Or B can please both A and C at once in different ways, etc. I don't think this is extremely common, but it does happen, and might be the norm for some poly relationships.
as for the sex in earshot, i have thought about finding something to do while that's going on. but it almost seems cowardly to me. no offense to anyone who works this way. i just feel like, if i am doing this, if this is all going to be a part of my life, i need to be able to embrace it all.
It sounds like you're torturing yourself. Imagine a different household, with a couple and another person, either an adult (possibly a family member or roommate) or a child (most likely child of the couple). It makes perfect sense for that person to know intellectually that the other two are having sex, but not to want to hear it. And if they do hear it, it makes perfect sense to try and do something else, not sit there and listen because they "should be able to embrace it all".
You're the one who knows where your comfort zone is. Nobody else can know that, and you need to be firm about it and treat yourself the best you can.
i'm hoping the NRE finally cools down and he gets back to normal. and when he does he'll realize how great i've been. and she'll become a friend, instead of only his GF.
Big warning sign here. You're basically suffering in silence in the hopes that you'll be rewarded later. I'm sure it comes from your people pleaser personality, but you need to realise how it might look for them. That is, since you don't voice what you dislike, since you force yourself to do things, they might very well think that's the way you like things.
And when they don't appreciate you for that and you resent them and tell them so, they would react thinking "but you liked it! Why are you blaming me for it now?"
It rings a bell for me because I had similar things with my soon to be ex husband. I'm going to talk about an anecdote that might seem silly, but I think represents very well what happened often with us.
One day we went to buy him sandals. At the time I had a job and he didn't (we each supported the other for half our relationship, although most of my supporting him was done through my parents). Any ways, it ended up being between two of them.
I asked him to pick the ones he preferred. While I had a preference, I didn't voice it in fear that he'd go with it to please me even though he didn't like it, as he's prone to it, and I insisted that he picked the ones HE liked best.
He picked the one I liked less, and I was fine with it, since it was his choice and all. So we paid and left.
Soon afterwards, there was an argument in which it came up that he had picked the shoes he liked least because he wanted to pick the ones he thought I would like more. And because he had done that for me I should be appreciative and bend for him as well.
My reaction? "I told you to pick the ones YOU liked best. You did that to yourself." The worst part was that his "sacrifice" was completely unnecessary and even harmful since I didn't even like these best.
Obviously, in this specific case, who cares if I like the shoes he's wearing? And I liked them enough, just not as much as the other ones. I was fine with his decision either way. He was so worried about deciding something that was what he thought I wanted that he went against his comfort (the shoes were apparently less comfortable) and likes (he preferred the look of the other ones), despite how much I insisted that he should pick the ones he wanted.
See how silly that is? I am not saying that you are acting in ways they'd rather you didn't, but I think there is a strong chance that they'd rather compromise now rather than realise in a while that you weren't happy about the situation. I has happened to me many times, and every time I felt cheated, lied to, betrayed. I had trusted him to tell me if things weren't up to his comfort, to voice his opinion, and he had lied to me, and then was blaming ME for it in the end ("I did it for you"). I really resented him for that. He felt like he was making himself miserable for no reason at all, telling me he was happy, and when it was too late for me to change things telling me "oh by the way, I'm miserable, it's your fault".
So, for that reason I would urge you to make your voice heard. I used to be like you, too shy to talk, and then I realised that the momentary discomfort of voicing yourself, as uncomfortable as it makes you ("do I deserve to have things done in a way that I like? Does it make me arrogant to think my opinion matters so much?") is much less uncomfortable than going through things you dislike hoping that people will be happier, only to realise in the end that they probably wouldn't have really cared either way, and you were miserable due to yourself only.
I don't know your exact situation, so I'm not saying it's all your fault here. They might be disrespectful of you. But you should remember that it's not going to be obvious to them what you like and dislike just because it's obvious to you. My boyfriend LOVES hearing his partner with other men. It turns him on a lot. Have you voiced that you don't? If you haven't, they might assume that you can't hear them, or that you don't mind or even like it.
You might think "if they cared, they'd tone it down" but if you haven't given them a reason to change, then it becomes an established pattern. If they became quieter, there is always a change that THAT would be a problem.
Do you see what I mean? I feel it's extremely important to be honest with your partner, and that means communicate the way you feel, in a way that doesn't blame them (avoid "you're too loud when you have sex" and try something like "hearing you two have sex makes me uncomfortable, what can we do about it?"). This way you're not blaming them, but approaching them with a problem you're hoping to all solve together.
Just use that approach as much as you can and remember that when you take care of your own happiness, the people around you don't have to, so that's also something you're doing for them.