Hello there
I've been reading this forum for a while now but have not quite mustered the courage to take part in conversations... Now, however, things happened in my life and I thought to ask if you would have any sort of advice for me or if you could suggest resources as I am not sure where to look. My issue is not strictly "poly relationship" issue so if this is a wrong place, I apologize and I suppose moderator can move this post.
I'll try to be as clear as I can.
Background
I am 30+ woman living with my nesting partner of 15 years, Lewis. He is also my first boyfriend so am reaaaally inexperienced when it comes to relationships and especially break ups; I have never broken up with anyone. Lewis was not, however, my first sexual experience, but it's not like I was very experienced in that front either. I was an awkward, lonely kid and considered myself ugly and undesirable to my late teens. Romance & sex came into picture around 3-4 months before I met Lewis and, well, from then on it was pretty much just him (except for certain hiccups that slowly convinced me I am non-mono minded, but that's a long story).
Around a year ago we opened our relationship, after toying and sliding towards non-mono situation for several years. Currently I have one steady partner besides Lewis, whom I'll call Sean. Lewis has another partner as well, Rose. Everything is good in regards to these relationships. In fact, I would say, things have gone almost surprisingly well considering we are newbies and I have pretty severe self-esteem issues. It's just that my relationship with Lewis is really good, we trust each other and we are understanding and forgiving. And we communicate. So things are good. Yay.
Ah, I need to say a couple of things about Sean. I never really "dated" Sean. In fact, we've been good friends years before anything sexual happened between us and little by little we slipped into this deep, intimate friendship with a substantial sexual element. So, again - no dating experience accumulated on this front, either... nor skills to handle that sort of things. This is relevant, I suppose.
The Date
Recently I reconnected with an old fling from before Lewis, Richard (I was into him then, he not so much and he called things off after 2 sleepovers). I'll omit a lot of details because otherwise, this will be a LONG story. Anyhoo, I still find Richard very desirable and interesting, and this time it seems he's interested in me, too. As we start chatting, he's the one to suggest a meeting and our chats did become pretty sexual rather quickly. Just a day before our meeting he's sending me these expectant messages and I was honestly hyped up and very flattered.
But then, the date... I mean, it wasn't bad, but not good, either. Lukewarm. We did have sex and it was enjoyable, but there was no passion, really. He didn't really engage with me and I just felt awkward and uncomfortable most of the time. He talked a lot about his other dates and would leave me waiting while he did some other things. This really perplexed me because, as said, he had seemed excited and eager to meet me, but all that was gone even before I got over the threshold. And when we exchanged couple of messages after the date, he made it pretty clear he has no interest in meeting me again.
The difficulty
My reaction to all this was very poor. Heartbreak, again. I was floored. What happened?? Why? Did I do something wrong? Did I say something? Was I too fat? Too ugly? Too boring and uninteresting? What is wrong with me?!
I felt utterly rejected, undesirable and disappointed. I felt like I had had this major chance and somehow I had fucked it up but had no idea how. Confused, sad and lonely. Ack.
Well, I will get over that. I have no idea what happened but I do not think the date is the core issue here; my reactions are.
The interpretation
I've been mulling over this and I've come to the following conclusions:
1. I suck at managing expectations. I expected a LOT from this date and in retrospect, most of my expectations had no basis in reality. It seems I read way more into my interactions with Richard than he did. He actually dates a lot so I would guess he had something much more casual in mind than I. He never promised me anything nor did he lead me on - this is all on me. I hoped for this and that, and when nothing I hoped for materialized, I was left broken and sad.
2. I take everything personally. As you can see, immediately after Richard's "thank you, but no thank you", I flew into self-blaming mode. I mean, there just must be something horribly wrong with me if he's not interested in having more contact me with, right?? So I felt completely rejected and disgusting.
The ultimate problem
Now, honestly, I would love to be friends with Richard, sexual or non-sexual, I don't really care. I just find him interesting, intelligent and charming. It seems, however, that once again the feeling is not mutual and this is entirely out of my control. I cannot make him interested in me so this issue I must drop and move on. It's not like this is a love story of the century anyways... I barely know the guy.
But, what I Do have control over is me myself. I would like to work on those two points I mentioned above, expectation management and self-esteem issues. Yeah, things with Richard didn't pan out and while I do not plan dive into dating per se, I'm sure there will be some action with other people besides Lewis and Sean somewhere in the future. And I would like to be able to handle it better than I did now.
So. Finally. My question is: how do I do that???? How do I learn to adjust my expectations to a proper level? How do I learn to relax and to take things as they are instead of jumping way ahead and building elaborate scenarios in my head?
And, even more importantly, how do I learn to love myself? How do you guys do that?... Even at best I barely tolerate myself. I don't want to take things this personally. I know, logically, that there is nothing wrong with me even if Richard is not into me. It's not like I've been into every single person who's interested in me and I do not think it's because there's something wrong with them. Just, no chemistry.
Are there books I could read? Exercises I could do? Any ideas? I do not even know where to start looking...
End notes
If you've read all of this, I sincerely thank you for your time and effort.
Also, English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes and if I sound somehow unpolite or weird. That's just because I might always be able to express myself properly in English.
I've been reading this forum for a while now but have not quite mustered the courage to take part in conversations... Now, however, things happened in my life and I thought to ask if you would have any sort of advice for me or if you could suggest resources as I am not sure where to look. My issue is not strictly "poly relationship" issue so if this is a wrong place, I apologize and I suppose moderator can move this post.
I'll try to be as clear as I can.
Background
I am 30+ woman living with my nesting partner of 15 years, Lewis. He is also my first boyfriend so am reaaaally inexperienced when it comes to relationships and especially break ups; I have never broken up with anyone. Lewis was not, however, my first sexual experience, but it's not like I was very experienced in that front either. I was an awkward, lonely kid and considered myself ugly and undesirable to my late teens. Romance & sex came into picture around 3-4 months before I met Lewis and, well, from then on it was pretty much just him (except for certain hiccups that slowly convinced me I am non-mono minded, but that's a long story).
Around a year ago we opened our relationship, after toying and sliding towards non-mono situation for several years. Currently I have one steady partner besides Lewis, whom I'll call Sean. Lewis has another partner as well, Rose. Everything is good in regards to these relationships. In fact, I would say, things have gone almost surprisingly well considering we are newbies and I have pretty severe self-esteem issues. It's just that my relationship with Lewis is really good, we trust each other and we are understanding and forgiving. And we communicate. So things are good. Yay.
Ah, I need to say a couple of things about Sean. I never really "dated" Sean. In fact, we've been good friends years before anything sexual happened between us and little by little we slipped into this deep, intimate friendship with a substantial sexual element. So, again - no dating experience accumulated on this front, either... nor skills to handle that sort of things. This is relevant, I suppose.
The Date
Recently I reconnected with an old fling from before Lewis, Richard (I was into him then, he not so much and he called things off after 2 sleepovers). I'll omit a lot of details because otherwise, this will be a LONG story. Anyhoo, I still find Richard very desirable and interesting, and this time it seems he's interested in me, too. As we start chatting, he's the one to suggest a meeting and our chats did become pretty sexual rather quickly. Just a day before our meeting he's sending me these expectant messages and I was honestly hyped up and very flattered.
But then, the date... I mean, it wasn't bad, but not good, either. Lukewarm. We did have sex and it was enjoyable, but there was no passion, really. He didn't really engage with me and I just felt awkward and uncomfortable most of the time. He talked a lot about his other dates and would leave me waiting while he did some other things. This really perplexed me because, as said, he had seemed excited and eager to meet me, but all that was gone even before I got over the threshold. And when we exchanged couple of messages after the date, he made it pretty clear he has no interest in meeting me again.
The difficulty
My reaction to all this was very poor. Heartbreak, again. I was floored. What happened?? Why? Did I do something wrong? Did I say something? Was I too fat? Too ugly? Too boring and uninteresting? What is wrong with me?!
I felt utterly rejected, undesirable and disappointed. I felt like I had had this major chance and somehow I had fucked it up but had no idea how. Confused, sad and lonely. Ack.
Well, I will get over that. I have no idea what happened but I do not think the date is the core issue here; my reactions are.
The interpretation
I've been mulling over this and I've come to the following conclusions:
1. I suck at managing expectations. I expected a LOT from this date and in retrospect, most of my expectations had no basis in reality. It seems I read way more into my interactions with Richard than he did. He actually dates a lot so I would guess he had something much more casual in mind than I. He never promised me anything nor did he lead me on - this is all on me. I hoped for this and that, and when nothing I hoped for materialized, I was left broken and sad.
2. I take everything personally. As you can see, immediately after Richard's "thank you, but no thank you", I flew into self-blaming mode. I mean, there just must be something horribly wrong with me if he's not interested in having more contact me with, right?? So I felt completely rejected and disgusting.
The ultimate problem
Now, honestly, I would love to be friends with Richard, sexual or non-sexual, I don't really care. I just find him interesting, intelligent and charming. It seems, however, that once again the feeling is not mutual and this is entirely out of my control. I cannot make him interested in me so this issue I must drop and move on. It's not like this is a love story of the century anyways... I barely know the guy.
But, what I Do have control over is me myself. I would like to work on those two points I mentioned above, expectation management and self-esteem issues. Yeah, things with Richard didn't pan out and while I do not plan dive into dating per se, I'm sure there will be some action with other people besides Lewis and Sean somewhere in the future. And I would like to be able to handle it better than I did now.
So. Finally. My question is: how do I do that???? How do I learn to adjust my expectations to a proper level? How do I learn to relax and to take things as they are instead of jumping way ahead and building elaborate scenarios in my head?
And, even more importantly, how do I learn to love myself? How do you guys do that?... Even at best I barely tolerate myself. I don't want to take things this personally. I know, logically, that there is nothing wrong with me even if Richard is not into me. It's not like I've been into every single person who's interested in me and I do not think it's because there's something wrong with them. Just, no chemistry.
Are there books I could read? Exercises I could do? Any ideas? I do not even know where to start looking...
End notes
If you've read all of this, I sincerely thank you for your time and effort.
Also, English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes and if I sound somehow unpolite or weird. That's just because I might always be able to express myself properly in English.