Minxxa's Little Corner of the World

So got to chat with hubs today which was nice. Sometimes I forget what his voice sounds like!

A week from today he'll be flying to VA and then checking out there, so hopefully home Friday night OR Saturday morning sometime. I'm making plans accordingly, knowing they are going to be fluid... gotta leave room for them to change.

I figure if he can't come Friday and it's saturday, then I get to go to one last yoga session on Friday, and have time to get gussied up! :) Gotta look at the bright side of everything, right?

This is his last weekend where he is, so he and the GF are obviously going to be spending most of it together. We talked about that briefly-- and a bit gingerly I think as it's been kind of raw for both of us, but it was good. I truly am okay with things... they might not be my preference, but I'm not upset or anything. I think she thinks I hate her.. and I don't. Im in a between place, where I have empathy for her situation, yet have retained a strong boundary about her not being in my life at all. It's kind of a wierd spot, but not bad. We can't all be fast friends in the world, and just because hubs clicked with her doesn't mean I have to or will. But I do wish her well.

I am, though, very much looking forward to having him home, and having the chance to get to enjoy being us for a while. We haven't REALLY gotten to do that in several years... so it's been a long time coming. I feel like I deserve to have that time now.

And though we have a lot of work to do on us, I'm in no rush. It's wierd, but I feel like all of the work and realizations and things I've been doing about myself have brought me to a much more calm place. I feel like I'm starting to really GET how to be supportive for those I love, but not feel responsible for making them happy or fixing things FOR them. They have to do that themselves because they want to-- it's not my job, not my responsibility, not even something I really CAN do. In a way it's like a big giant weight has been lifted off of me.

When I started counseling (again!) a few months ago, my counselor asked me about that. What would happen if I just let them take care of things themselves? (meaning my daughter and hubs mostly). And at the time I felt like if I wasn't there to help them that things would all fall apart. And frankly, sometimes that might be true! But they are both adults, and they both need to learn how to handle thier own stuff. I can support that, and be there if they need me, but I don't have to constantly be on the lookout for things that may hurt them. Yes, they might get hurt. But how else do we learn, but by trying things, doing things, suffering consequences, reaping rewards? Who am I to take that gift away from them?

OK, enough philosophizing... :)
 
So a new week!! I am very excited as hubs is coming home this weekend, though I still don't know for sure what day (Fri or Sat) and won't know that until Friday at some point. LOL, gotta love the military...

This week is CRAZY busy for me. I'm trying not to get overwhelmed and just take each day one thing at a time. The weekend will be nice, though, relaxing and hubs home, so that will be worth it!

This weekend I got a chance to meet up with SNeacail for lunch. It was a nice time! We discussed all kinds of things, hubs and kids and such. :)

The only downside is no yoga this week. :-( Just can't fit it in with everything I have to do. Oh well... just have to get right back into it next week!
 
It was really nice meeting up for lunch and talking. Kinda scary how similar our husbands are :).

LOL, I know! I'm telling you us women with partners with ADD need to get together more often! :) They are such wonderful, fun people, but when it comes down to getting things done-- can be interesting!!
 
So I'm feeling very reflective today. Hubs and I hadn't been good in a long time. The goal for this year was to do couple's counseling, which got derailed when he got sent across the country unexpectedly. During this time, even though we were so far apart, we did do a lot of work on us, AND I got the opportunity to learn a lot about myself.

With him coming home in a few days I've really been thinking about those changes.

So ... what I've learned this year:

1) I need to be my own person, and my husband needs to be his own person. I love him and like being with him, but he can't be the center of my existence. It's not healthy for me, and it puts too much pressure on him. In the past few months I've REALLY separated myself from the wierd enmeshed relationship we have had. It's been odd, but good.

2) The problems hubs and I have had in the past have nothing to do with poly, or seeing other people, and everything to do with ADD behaviors and my responses (mostly emotional) to them. This isn't to say I blame ADD for everything... only that many of the things he does are due to the way his brain works differently, and many of the issues we've had are both with him behaving in these ways and with my overemotional, taking it personally reaction to that. Instead of being realistic about who we are and what we can give/do/be to each other, I was "shoulding" us. He "should" do X. I shouldn't feel Y. Etc. ad nauseum. I'm done with that and it's helped a lot. And in learning about ADD I've been able to learn more about how he works, so that I can work with it in a better, more positive way.

3) I have a lot of anxiety. I am a worrier, and tend to overthink things, see the bad stuff that can happen and worry about things out of my control. Now that I see that behavior in myself, I am working to let go of things I cannot control, and do things that mitigate my anxiety to some extent (like yoga). I'm also learning to let the people in my life take care of themselves more, instead of me thinking I need to help them all of the time. There is going to be some fallout from this, in that while I love them, the people in my life don't think ahead too much, but I'm done taking that burden on myself.

4) I don't have to like the people hubs dates. I don't really EVEN have to respect them, though I still need to treat them respectfully. Chances are, I will never be able to have that "close friendship" type of relationship with soemone he dates-- simply because he chooses people who are completely and totally not people I relate to at all, or would enjoy being around for any length of time. And that's okay. I think it's harder on him because he wants everyone to get along and talk, but he's going to have to live with it. :)

5) I am a pretty decent person, and need to stop underestimating myself and my "worth" to other people. I have always done this, and it's tiring and I'm done with it.

It's been a lot of personal work, and a lot of epiphanies. All of this will be challenged a bit when he comes home. I'm not the same person he left. I'm not even the same person he saw 7 weeks ago. This is going to be a bit confusing when we're back to seeing each other every day and trying to work together on things as we've been living completely separate lives for most of the past few years.

Should be interesting! :eek:
 
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So found out this morning that hubs WILL be home tonight. :D

Trying to get through work (2-1/2 more hours), then off to yoga and then prepping for the weekend. We're spending a couple of days at a hotel... our house is WAY too tiny for a reunion with two kidlets in the house! :rolleyes:

I'm excited... and a bit antsy. And really feel like just doing a little dance singing "I'm gonna get la---id!!" :p
 
Congrats on all the awesome, hard work you've been doing!
 
Ahhhhh.... much better! :)

And I love that song, LOL...

We had a great three days away (in town)... but got super burnt at the pool on Saturday, LOL. Still... nice and relaxing and fun. Now back to the real world.... booo! :)

Not so bad for me, but he's got a lot of adjusting to do. Different job, different daily patterns... it's gonna be interesting. When he was gone he lived close to work, so he walked every day. Got his coffee and walked to work and woke up. He also had a place to himself. Now back to the family crowdedness. Should be interesting...

Only a little under two weeks until our vacay, so that will be nice. Then the real shocker of being back will start!
 
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That is going to be a crazy adjustment.

Glad you guys got some time away before everything changes for him.
 
Good luck with everything, Minxxa.

I'm glad people like the video. The refrain often goes through my mind after a good session with miss pixi!
 
Hehe, I was humming it earlier and my son asked what I was humming. So I told him. (He's 20, it's ok. And it's not even true, b/c miss pixi is away!) :rolleyes:
 
So things have been going well. :) It's really nice to have hubs home. This week has been a busy beeyatch of a week, though. Once the weekend hits things will calm WAY down, so very much looking forward to that!

I've been a bit under the weather this week as well. :-( Probably from the busyness of the past month as well as not as much sleep and a bit too much partying this past weekend. :D

But, I should be all good by next week, just in time for vacay, so that's all that matters!!

I think I'm going to be on the board a little less for a while. Not because hubs is home, but for a lot of other reasons. When I signed up, it was to do some work on myself, to expand my ideas of what was possible by reading other people's stories, and to get some perspective. I'd been nonmonogamous for quite a while, but it had been in limited bursts and no real experience with long term arrangements. I needed to get myself back into the mindset and figure out a few things.

I've found a lot of people on here that I identify with, and quite a few whom I don't! :eek: One thing, though, is that although there are some people I disagree with on a regular basis, it does cause me to think hard about what I feel, what I believe and what I need for MYSELF, so that's been a great thing.

Hubs and I have a lot of figuring out to do about us as a couple. There are some really deep issues that need to be handled-- or at least explored and talked about-- so that we know what's going on with each other. And communication needs to be strengthened, so that we CAN talk about these things without all of the reactionary bullshit that can happen. In my heart I truly feel that this stuff needs to be focused on before we bring any more people into the midst (more than are already there anyway!). I'm hoping hubs sees it that way as well, we will see.

So for now, I'm not actively seeking another partner-- for now. I will remain open to the people around me, and am not closing off that option, though. I had a little interesting moment last week when I realized I had a little crush on one of the guys in my class at school. This is the first class I've had with him and I won't have any others since the rest of the group is on a different track that I just hopped into for this one class. Nothing will likely come of it as we only have one more class before we're done. But it was nice to feel that feeling again. That attraction for somebody, when you learn things about them and realize you like what you see. I don't feel that often--which sometimes sucks, but that's just me. But I see that the possibility is there, in some way, and it works much better when it happens organically and isn't forced.

And I am thinking that for a while it might be good for me to not be hanging out here all of the time. While the information I've gained has been awesome, and I've met some cool people, I need to focus on my own relationship and where it is.

I'm sure I'll still stop by and check, but for now I need to get away from the computer and jump back into real life. :D
 
So things have been going well, yet interesting. :)

Our vacay was lovely... basically just lots of lounging and relaxing, something that's really HARD for me to do as I have a base level of anxiety that is usually soothed by doing something. Coming back was hard and depressing.

I've come to some realizations this past week about myself. Some just from talking with hubs, and then I just got the audio version of Radical Acceptance and have been listening to that. It really hit home-- to the point where the first five minutes of listening in the car on Sunday I was crying my eyes out. :eek:

Basically what it comes down to is I have little to no self-esteem. I have always felt like I wasn't good enough (in every way) for people to like me or stick around, or (eventually) to love me, so I have spent my whole life "working" on me to make myself a better person. One who could be loved.

I've intellectualized my feelings trying to be able to not get "too" emotional, since that was something that was consistently pointed out to me as being BAD. I actually have report cards when I was 7 or 8 saying how I was too emotional and react badly when things "don't go my way"-- i.e. when the other little girls were being cruel and mean I cried and that was bad.

I know a lot of this comes from having a somewhat unstable childhood (and I HATE blaming childhood for shit, I really do). My mom was great and loved me and was a good mom... but we moved around a LOT. I went to about 9 schools between kindergarden and high school, and the house I live in how is the 40th house I've lived in -- in 43 years. So stability has never been my life. And maybe in some way I've been looking for stable, but then choosing people that can't, and will never provide that.

Anyway, somehow in all of the years of me working on myself to become more self-aware (ha, ha) I seem to have missed the part where I'm a complete and utter mess.

In Radical Acceptance she talks about how we create these stories for ourselves to explain away things or to cover up what we're really feeling. And that's pretty much what I've been doing all of my life.

So... right now I'm taking a little break from "working on myself", and am just trying to learn how to be. I'm accepting that I don't know as much as I thought I did and that I'm a mess and that's the way it is for now. I'm TIRED.

Hubs and the GF are still together, and working on things too. I'm happy for him, and glad-- but it's very hard for me because it hits me right in the center of my sense of unworthiness and unlovableness. And it doesn't help that hubs and I are still trying to find a balance where we show each other we care-- and don't just sit in separate rooms of the house doing our own thing all of the time. That, too, hits me right at the heart of my fears.

Hubs and I had a talk the other day and he admitted that he was working extra hard to make sure that he gave her the time she needed and attention and scheduled skypes, etc-- because he learned his lesson from fucking up with me. :( And while I love that he is learning from his mistakes, it just fucking sucks that all his mistakes get made with ME, and then someone else gets to benefit from the lesson. Yea, great. Glad I could help you make sure not to let HER feel like a piece of worthless, unwanted shit that was too much trouble for a couple of phone calls.

So it's hard. I still feel like I'm in second place. I'm not even sure HOW to help us connect better. I thought today that I have been striving all of my life to be "happy"... and when I think about it, I don't even know what the fuck that means. What is happy? What do I NEED? I have no freaking clue.
 
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