Poly journey of Mya and rory

I've been smiling a lot during these last few days because I got some good news from rory but I'll let her tell you the news herself. :)

Today I had an interesting conversation with Bob, it gave me much to think about. We talked about our feelings and whether we would consider each other possible partners if the situation was different. He said that he likes me and appreciates my personality but thinks that he probably wouldn't fall in love with me because I lack something that his previous loves and current one have in common: bitchyness. :D So I'm not bitchy enough for him! That's actually really nice to hear because that's something I really don't want to be and if that's what he's into, then I'm not what he's into. I tried to get him to clarify what he means with bitchyness but I didn't really get a clear picture what he meant, but I can't imagine it being something that I would be or like to be. I also told him that I'm not sure he would be emotional enough for me. We had just talked about that in a previous discussion when he said that he just doesn't feel that much in general. He has been and is now in love (with his gf), but he thinks that even the feeling of love isn't that big for him, it's just a feeling among others. I'm not sure he would deal well with my constant conversations and analysis about emotions. Still, after all that we concluded that... there is something special here and you never know. :rolleyes: Situations change all the time and maybe in another time and place there is a chance for us. But now we accept the situation as it is: we're going our separate ways in two months. Oh and he and his gf changed their minds about moving. He was supposed to move to his gf's country but instead they now decided that she is moving to him. They will be moving to a different city though, so he isn't staying in my home town. (rory: they're moving to where you used live too before moving to Wonderland)
 
Oh, sorry! :) Haven't had the energy to write (full time volunteering) and don't have that much now, but I'll update the news.

It is looking very much like me and Alec will be moving to Dream City soon, after all!! I got into a very good university there, so I won't be too sad about leaving the one I'm in now. There's a bit of the finances to sort out still, but if nothing unexpected happens, we'll move. That means we'll be moving basically at the same time with Mya. :) I'm very excited but also quite scared.. On one hand, it is unbelievably cool when so many of the things that I want may be coming true, but, on the other, it is also really scary because there's still a lot of uncertainty about how we will be able to support ourselves staying in Wonderland.

But I do realise something. I am keeping myself from being too excited so that the possible disappointment wouldn't hurt as much. And that makes no sense. Firstly, it will hurt either way. Secondly, doing that I won't get to feel the excitement and joy, and I can't enjoy even the time that I do have if I stress about the what ifs.

So, yay!! :)
 
^Yep, it's cool!! :)

Me and Alec are flying to Home Country for a couple of weeks tomorrow. He'll spend most of the time with his family, who I'll visit, too, but I'll also meet many friends and go visit Mya and JJ. I probably won't be much on the Internet while there, but I'll see you all when I get back! :)
 
Yay, I get to see rory soon! :) Yay, she's most likely moving to Dream City! :) Happy happy happy!!

Today I got a real wave of appreciation toward rory when I realised how easy she is to understand. It's not that we just get each other instantly every time we talk about something but it's the fact that she's willing to explain herself very thoroughly so that I can almost always get on the same page with her eventually. She always answers my questions and I do ask quite a lot of them. Sometimes I get a bit frustrated with Bob because he's not like that at all. I would like to get to know him better in order to build a deep friendship that would last even though we're going to be in different countries soon. But he has built walls around him and it's not easy to get through them. He thinks that I sometimes ask too many personal questions and that I try to get too close to him when he doesn't know yet how much of himself he wants to reveal to me. He says he gets to know people by observing them. I think that leaves too much chance for misinterpretation and that's why I prefer asking direct questions and giving honest answers. So we're somewhat incompatible in our communication methods, it seems. Well, we'll see how all this unfolds in the near future.
 
I get to see rory today, woohoo! :) I'm really really happy about that. Today I'm going to introduce her to Bob and a friend of mine who is visiting my home town this weekend.

This last couple of months I've had the most active social life that I think I've ever had. It's been crazy. Right now I feel a bit emotionally drained. Most of my friendships are deep and loving, so it takes quite a lot of work to keep them that way, especially when there's quite a few of them. Some of these friendships include kissing and other types of closeness from time to time, but not sex (except with Bob). Right now I feel like I should stop making out with my friends, at least for a while. The consequence of kissing them is that they sometimes suggest or hint about sex. And I usually don't want to go there with them. There's been two cases like this recently. The reason to say no depends on the friend. One I'm not attracted to that way. The other one is hot but I've seen several friendships of hers break after they had sex and she developed romantic feelings for the other person, but to them it was just-for-fun-sex, so she couldn't handle it and go back to being just friends. I don't want that to happen to us, I want to keep her in my life as a friend. Sooo.. I feel like lately I've had way too many talks and thoughts about who wants what from me and what do I want from them. It's exhausting. First with Bob and now a couple of friends. I think I want some peace in my life and this not how to achieve it. :rolleyes:
 
I had the most amazing time with rory! <3 We had some great conversations, a lot of closeness and just.. perfect time together. I decided not to work on those three days she was here and I think it was the right decision. JJ gave us enough space to be alone, I really appreciated that. Her presence just makes me so happy and I love her and our relationship. I love the fact that we don't have NRE anymore, so that we can see each other's flaws and not be obsessed about each other, but instead we're building something real, solid and hopefully lasting. I've been waiting for a chance for this relationship to grow more and I feel it's been given that chance now that we're moving to the same city. I'm amazed how all this worked out eventually even though the situation looked quite bad for a while. Ok, we're not living there just yet, but it's not going to take long anymore, a bit over a month maybe. Gosh, this is really happening! :)
 
Hey, that's not long to go at all. Bet you're excited!

And taking time away from work is goooood. Glad you got to hang out. Nourishing :)
 
fuchka: Yeah, very excited! :) It was really good to take some time off and just be together. Very important.


I had a fight with Bob yesterday. :( I don't know why I even bother with him, this whole thing has been such a hassle. I guess there's enough good in him and our thing that I keep trying. But sometimes we're just so bad at communicating and we keep misinterpreting each other. We're planning to have a serious conversation tonight. I really hope we can get everything out in the open and figure out finally what we're all about. I thought we had already done that but I guess I was wrong since he still thinks some things about me that aren't true. This really shouldn't be this hard. :rolleyes:
 
The conversation with Bob went well. :) Even though I've told him from the start that I don't want anything serious with him, he thought that my words and actions were contradictory and suspected that I did want something more with him anyway. We cleared that up and now we're hopefully on the same page again. I had to come to a conclusion that my actions represent my feelings (I like him) and that he's used to being treated like that only when someone wants to be his partner. I had to explain to him the difference between my feelings and my rational decisions, that I don't just go with the feelings whenever I have them. I make my decisions based on many different things and feelings are just one of them. Even though I like him, we just can't be partners and I know that. And even though I know that, I still treat him with the same tenderness that I would with anyone I have feelings for. So I guess that's where things got confusing for him. Then we also concluded that we're friends first and the benefits are only a bonus. If sex is making things too difficult, we want to save the friendship and stop the sex. It hasn't come to that yet but at least we know now what's the most important thing for us and that's friendship. It was a good conversation. :)
 
I had a really nice skype call with rory today. :) First we talked about stuff that had happened and stuff that was on our minds but then after a few hours we started looking for jobs and apartments in Dream City, both surfing on our own computers and commenting on the different things we found. It was such a sweet moment of sharing everyday life, like we were sitting next to each other doing our own things even though we're in different countries. I totally enjoyed it. :)

I think my feelings for Bob are diminishing. I'm just realising more and more every day how incompatible we are and how he doesn't make me feel as good as he used to. I do still want to see him and I care about him but let's just say I'm not going to be totally heartbroken when we go our separate ways soon.
 
Yesterday I was at Bob's and we had a final closing conversation about whether we're compatible or not. I've had a feeling about this from the start. This is what I thought about him when I first started having any kind of non-platonic feelings for him:

I don't have a crush on him, he's not someone I would date (too masculine), but I find myself thinking about him just sexually.

And a bit later:

Me and Bob can't have a relationship. --- To top it off, I'm not even sure we would be that compatible, but this one I'm not really sure about yet, since I'm still getting to know him better.

The masculinity. That is basically the problem. We came to the conclusion that I need someone softer / more feminine than him and he needs someone tougher / more masculine than me (remember the bitchyness comment?). It just wouldn't work. I know this isn't anything new but somehow yesterday we just saw it all so clearly together. He even called it a breakthrough. :p I felt so calm and relieved after that discussion. At one point I asked him what do we see in each other, why are we still somehow drawn to each other. He said that maybe we just want to learn from each other. I think that sounds kinda accurate. I find him very interesting in a way, because he's such a complicated person and works so differently than me. I just like to observe his ways which I find fascinating but yet so incompatible with mine. So yeah. I'm happy to continue learning from each other as friends. This isn't going anywhere else unless one or both of us changes a lot.
 
I think me and JJ are going to break up. :( He is so good to me and such a good partner, but something has happened and we haven't been close for a while now. We've become so distant that we're more like roommates than partners. Maybe we're just not feeling like we used to. He annoys me a lot even though he isn't doing anything differently than before, so that must be all me. We don't enjoy each other's company like we used to. We appreciate and respect each other and care about each other, but is that enough? Why should we go on like this? :(
 
The visit to Home Country was mostly good, I had a lovely time with Mya. After that I've just been organising load of stuff for moving, i.e. mostly job hunting. I fluctuate between being excited and a little stressed out and being a ball of anxiety. The latter is getting more pronounced as it's getting closer (3 weeks, fucking hell!).

However, there was a huge relief that realised itself as Alec got a job offer (or rather, a few of them). It's all still a bit unclear around whereabouts his job will be in Dream City (which is making flat search challenging) but either way he should have the kind of work he's been unable to do here. I can't tell you people how happy I am about that. :) It's a load off our shoulders about our immediate financial survival, and on top of that, it is also really promising that things will be better for both of us in Dream City, which is tied to questions about future in this country.

I wrote earlier about boundaries around finances. I've been insanely happy with that decision. Helps, of course, that Alec has gotten a job so quickly, but that is not the biggest thing. I've felt great about the fact that we've been able to have really good, balanced discussions about all the future stuff, without him going on defensive and me letting my fear drive my actions. And I do feel like I trust Alec more, now that I've been able to let go of the controlling; I've been seeing that he does a lot, he has his own style, and it seems to be working well for him. And I haven't felt like the burden of responsibility lies on my shoulders when I've allowed him to do his share and kept out of some things entirely. Very happy about the positive developments.

I can't believe it's only 3 weeks until I live in the same city with Mya. So cool! At times it's hard to focus on that with all the stress getting in the way, but so cool. Yay! :)

I do have a bit of the old "how can I be enough for two partners who are both living in the same city" fear, an issue about which I'm realistically not too worried about. Emotions, if only they were rational. It's simply the change and the fact that I'm feeling so stressed out and expect that to be the situation in Dream City for some time as well. I do know that fears about 'not being enough'/'people expecting stuff from me'/'potentially having to make boundaries' do tend to coincide with feeling exhausted with other stuff. The moments when I feel like I'm too tired to do anything are the ones when I most need boundaries (i.e. time and space for myself) and the ones when I really wouldn't have the energy to make/enforce those (because I'll then have to manage guilt, too, which is exhausting). Btw, in advance dreading this kind of thing has very little to do with what I expect my partners to want for me (I do trust that both of them are interested in my well being) and more to do with simply mostly-irrational fears.

It is funny, really, how digging revealed again guilt at the bottom of one anxiety. Huh... :rolleyes: (Sorry about the likely incoherence of this post.)
 
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I noticed something recently about how I make decisions. I don't think I'm following the poly handbook on this. ;)

It's been a long time since I came to the conclusion that once I live in the same place with Mya, I would like to spend two nights a week with her. I've mentioned it here, and I've mentioned it to Alec, but that was a while back, and we expected that to happen later. However, now we are all three moving to Dream City (yay!!).

So, I got this feeling that I need to talk with Alec again, and tell him that once we've moved, I will want to spend two nights a week with Mya. Firstly, he needs the information and, secondly, I want to hear how he feels about it. Yet, I felt that whatever his feelings might be, this wouldn't be something I was prepared to negotiate.

That is something that got me thinking. In a poly situation, aren't you supposed to be willing to negotiate on things? To be willing to take everybody's feelings into account? Is there perhaps something wrong, am I being selfish, when I have already decided this and talked about it with Mya, without giving Alec the chance to voice his opinion? After all, it is a change and it affects him quite a bit.

But no. I did realise something here. While I really really want to have those two nights a week with Mya, that is not the reason why I am unwilling to negotiate. What I want is this concrete thing. What I need goes deeper than that. What I need in a relationship is autonomy, and that is not negotiable.

Alec and I had the talk.
me: "I was thinking, once we are in Dream City, I will be spending two nights a week with Mya."
Alec: "right"
me: "you have thoughts on that..?"
Alec: "What can I say? You'll do whatever you want to do."

Some part of me feels like I'm breaking some cultural relationship-code when I won't argue with that, telling him "oh no come on I want your opinion so we can make a compromiseee". Like I'm being selfish.

However, I want to be honest. And honestly, what he said is the truth in its purest form. I will, indeed, do what I want to do. That doesn't mean I will act on every whim I get, I mean what I actually want, including all the aspects of my life. In there many things are present including my relationships with my partners.

I don't think I am being selfish. I think I am being true to myself, and that I have high expectations my partners. I expect them to, firstly, trust that I will make decisions which value and uphold the relationship with them. I will make time for them, because I want to do so and because the relationship is important to me. Secondly, if they feel like they are not getting what they want in their relationship with me, I expect them to do something. One option is for them to talk to me about it and see if we can find a solution that will make all happy. But if such cannot be found, and what I am choosing to do is causing them to be unhappy, they also have the responsibility to change things for themself, i.e. leave the relationship.

It doesn't come down to selfishness though my social conditioning regarding gender and romantic relationships would try to tell me so. It comes down to what I need in a relationship. I need autonomy. I need my partner to be both supportive of that autonomy and able to handle what it means for their life. If they need a relationship where decisions are made as a team, if they need a couple relationship, our needs just aren't compatible, and they need to stay true to that as I will stay true to my need for autonomy.
 
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I totally agree with nycindie. :) And I also think more people should value autonomy more. Rory's attitude makes me feel like I'm just as important as Alec and she is the one deciding how and when we get to see each other and I don't have to wait around for Alec's permission. Obviously I care about what Alec is feeling but I just wouldn't be comfortable with him and rory deciding what can and can't happen in my and rory's relationship. I also feel like me and rory are a good match in many ways and this is one of them. We both value autonomy very much and couldn't have a "traditional" we-decide-everything-together-as-a-couple type of relationship.
 
My relationship life is a mess right now regarding everything else but rory. We're doing perfectly fine. Me and JJ on the other hand are one discussion away from a divorce. I don't think there's anything at the moment that could make things better. There is a chance for getting back together at some point but I think I just need that ending point first. And if we do feel like trying again, we have to commit to it, really try hard and fix everything that's broken. Right now I don't have the motivation to do that. I need a break from the unhappy situation as it is now.

I saw Bob yesterday for the last time before I leave the country. It was a very emotional visit. He's also breaking up with his girlfriend so we tried to support each other with our break-ups. I saw something in him that night that I haven't seen before. Something very soft, emotional and vulnerable. All of a sudden I forgot everything I've ever thought about us not being compatible. He moved something inside me. Why now? Why did this have to happen on my last visit? Right now I'm feeling very sad that we're not going to be in the same place soon. That man is driving me crazy. I feel like I'm sort of addicted to him. Like I know he's not good for me (or do I? I keep questioning myself), but I keep coming back and wanting more. Well, this thing in its current form is going to end anyway no matter what I think about it. Dream City is where I want to be, no question about that. But man, this is harder than I thought. :(
 
rory - I find your point about autonomy interesting. Sago and I also really value this, and it's the foundation of how we respect each other.

When I ask S for his opinion about the things I want, he often replies in a similar fashion to Alec, i.e. true statement acknowledging my autonomy.

However, it seems what I often need in these situations is to hear whether this is something he can cope with, that he's okay to accommodate... that sort of thing. Usually he doesn't know for sure (who does) but if it's raising any flags for him I want to know. Even if it won't ultimately change my wants/needs... I do still genuinely want to understand his perspective on it so I can feed that back in to how I behave, or consider my own options.

One of the best things S ever said to me was "I care about our relationship too much to fuck it up by not communicating with you when I need to, if something is bothering me." With that understanding, I think we can navigate many 'un-negotiable' needs/desires.

Mya - sorry to hear about things tense with JJ, and also sad with Bob.

Good luck with your move, all of you. Lots of love
 
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