Dear, dear Mags... I am sorry things feel so rough for you right now.
I was going to write this when you were wrestling with the Buddhist coming into Ginger's life, but then it seemed you felt better about it and things were lifting before it fizzled out. Anyhoo, here's what I see as a major part of the issue for you:
You know that I know... you had to kiss a lot of fucking frogs before you found Ginger. Dating was a rollercoaster, and you had many hopeful starts, only to find yourself disappointed, and to see those hopes dashed and expectations squashed over and over again. Some guys were clueless, some inconsiderate, and some just plain mean. You wanted kink, you wanted love, you wanted someone you could count on, and you wanted a little bit of domestic bliss. It took a while but eventually you met Ginger, a truly great poly guy with whom you clicked!
For a while at first, you were also dating others. You had two other male lovers, right? The Gentleman for several months, and someone else, I think? Anyway, at some point you let the others go and said, "I'm happy with only miss pixi and Ginger. More than two lovers and I'm polysaturated!" Something in you felt "settled." Been a long road, but now I found the two people I want to be with. Aaah, that's it. And then when you had threesomes with miss pixi and Ginger, it was something very new and exciting, and challenged you in some ways, but perhaps those experiences led you to see the three of you as a unit of some kind, closer, all relating well, moving forward in life together... a poly version of settling down.
So, when an opportunity came along for you to move into a house that is closer to Ginger, you did. I think you must've had expectations about how living in closer proximity to each other would kind of further "solidify" your relationship with Ginger. Maybe it's those expectations you carry around with you that he senses and feels is oppressive. You see miss pixi as a life partner, I believe, and I think you see Ginger as a life partner, too. Then, you were surprised that he wasn't spending more time with you and wanted to date other people. For some reason, you felt that his dating others takes something away from you and lessens what you mean to him. From your blog:
miss p and I had had this, "Whee! We've moved in together and are setting up a nice little lesbian/bi/poly household" euphoria this past summer, and it just totally faded when the downstairs flooded and Ginger complicated things with Buddhist. I long for stability, feeling centered, and grounded, so much.
. . . there was just too much polysaturation going on!
. . . One thing I know, there's not much chance *I* will be dating any strangers anytime soon. That would just be crazy. I wonder if other here feel the same. Your partners' dating is so complicated, it suppresses your own desire to date more people?
I am so uninterested in dating...
Being a life partner probably means something different to Ginger than it does to you. In addition, your ability to feel stable, centered, and grounded should not hinge on anyone else's behavior. You can be the calm within the storm going on around you without letting yourself be tossed around by it. The fact is, Mags, that Ginger is a very poly guy. He did not go through the same frog-kissing you did; he did not reach a point where he said, "Okay, I'm polysaturated, let's all settle down now!" He found you, and loves you, but doesn't see a need to stop being open to more love wherever else he may find it. He didn't say, "I've got enough love, thank you very much, and don't need any more!" For some reason, you think that his wanting more means he is not satisfied and you can't understand why he doesn't have the same tolerance level for the number of relationships he can manage as you do. You wish he would apply your standard for how much is enough to his life. In your blog, you stated that there were times when he wasn't seeing how his dating others was affecting you, but I wonder how much you were affected by your own judgments about what he was doing. Expectations are always a killer.
It seems to me like you want a sort of monogamous version of polyamory. I really have this sense that it is your monogamous conditioning that, for whatever reason, really rises up in you when it comes to Ginger. Is it that you want some kind of definitive word on what your relationship is and how important you are to him? You don't go through the same kind of doubts with miss pixi that you do with Ginger, so what is different? What do you need in order to not feel threatened and sick to your stomach when he pursues someone else in that free-spirited way of his?
I am feeling distant and unbonded with Ginger . . . I feel like just one of a harem now. A revolving door or conveyor belt of pussy for him, and I am just one of them. Yuck. I said, "I don't feel special," and it didn't help when he replied, "You are all special."
A few days ago miss p and I were running an errand in his town, and I said, do you want to just drop by on Ginger so you can see his new porch? So we did and found him at home. So we were out on the porch, Ginger and I standing there with our arms around each other, and miss p sitting on the bench. We chatted, he told her details of the building process, etc.
Then we went inside his cabin and suddenly he reached out, grabbed miss p and gave her a solid kiss. He let her up for air, and said, "All I've been wanting to do since you got here was that."
Man, that hurt. He had his arm around me and all he wanted to do was grab and kiss miss p? Fuck.
I don't know why you use Ginger's poly-ness to beat yourself down. You're poly and you sought out poly partners. What I find interesting is that you don't go through these crazies with miss pixi. She has been dating and/or had other lovers all along, and you have always been able to hear what miss pixi gets into (sexually) with them, but that doesn't seem to scare or annoy you as much as when Ginger tells you what he's doing, even though you press him for the information. If you could count how many times in your blog you exclaimed "5 partners!" or "5 women!" either about him or Buddhist - something about having that many lovers really rubs you the wrong way. You expressed a few judgments about some of the people he was interested in, saying not-very-nice things about them or wondering if they were worthy of him (even though, frankly, whomever he dates isn't anyone's business but his own), and you also admitted to feeling a bit competitive.
After a potential for him to be with someone dies away, you feel better, like your place in his life is more secure, but when there's someone else who pops into his sphere and he's interested, you feel like just a number, depressed, and not important enough. It's the feeling of being threatened that I think needs a closer look - where does that come from? What is it that throws off your sense of security? Is it your relationship with Ginger, or your relationship with yourself?
I think you need to remember:
. . . they both love me and lust for me, spend time with me, take care of me and our house, have fun with me. What they do when they aren't focused on me is really none of my business. It's not a threat, just a complication. I hope I can be more graceful if/when Ginger finds a new gf.
I also think you do need to discuss with him how unsure you feel about going to these events and activities that you've been attending with him, where you will possibly see these other women. It probably hasn't even occured to him that you would feel uncomfortable there. Maybe you can ask that he come over and have a date with you after the event ends. There is certainly no reason for you to step back and "dance alone" or sit in a corner. I think you should go there with your head held high, on his arm if you like! Be the fabulous and gracious woman you are, introduce yourself to his other interests, relax, and enjoy being with your rock star boyfriend.