searching for meaning

justlost

New member
So my husband (khas) and I have been married 10+ years, we have together raised (mostly) my 4 children.
We started with nothing but each other and my kids, we worked together and fought and loved and survived to the point of have 3 kids raised and mostly on their own, only one 15 year old still at home.

We briefly discussed poly shortly after our marriage. At the time a dear friend of mine became an sexual interest for my husband. He said he found her compelling because of the friendship the three of us had built and the interaction between her and I was one he found alluring. I didn't understand and in my naive mindset I set up a threesome between us. The problem mostly was I didn't tell either of them how much the whole thing hurt me. I wanted only the happiness of my husband and friend, I tried to put my own feelings in a box. Needless to say on "the night" I broke down and nothing happened besides the beginning of the slow death of a dear friendship. Somehow I thought if I kept her out of our life the whole thing would disappear.

Over the next 10 years our life became centered around work/kids and we had basically no friends. My friendship with B. devolved into a yearly christmas/birthday card relationship. And we moved, and moved, and moved... always searching for who knows what. We never again crossed out of our marriage for any other relationships. But as I am discovering things like this can't be ignored.

Over the years Khas became more and more ... frankly miserable... he was grouchy and awful and though we split for 8 months in 2004, nothing really changed when we got back together.
So all these years later, he finally has the career he was working for and I am now disabled and pretty miserable myself.

1500 miles away from where we started and B is back in our lives. Her daughter moved here for college and she followed. Slowly over the last year we have built our friendship back up. Openly discussing the situation that led to the estrangement and deciding together that she and Khas would never cross into that territory again.

But life is not so simple is it.... a couple of months ago Khas came to me and told me basically that he is poly and he has deep and growing feelings for B. he wants to love her, to hold her, to share life with her and yet he wants me too....
B and I have a deep friendship, we've talked about what is happening and she is pretty unsure of where to go... we aren't in a hurry, we have time to work it all out.

I love Khas, more than anything, I want to grow old with him and I want to share every up and down of life together with him along the way. More than anything I want him to be happy, the reemergence of his dating behaviors is both thrilling and deeply painful.

Why when I want him to be happy and he finally is, does it hurt me so very much?
I have agreed to the move to poly life. Rationally I understand and accept who he is and where this is going... emotionally I want to scream and rip out my hair...

I have been reading this site for the last couple of weeks. I see that I have much to work on personally, I have let my life devolve into the role of wife/mother and left no room to even see who I am.

I know his love is not finite, that his loving another is not an exclusion of me... but it feels like it.

I am sorry this is so rambling... I have read so many of your posts and see how far I have to go, but I have one question....
I keep seeing "it gets better" but.............

Does it ever stop hurting?

Is there ever a time to come when I will feel only joy for Khas' joy, and not just learn how to redirect my own anguish so that it is "better"?

Is there ever a moment of peace to come or will my heart hurt until I can't even define myself as more than pain... ok seriously melodramitic but that is so how I feel..

yesterday I made the analogy that its like he is cutting me with a chainsaw and then complaining because he stubbed his toe in the process... yes he hurts too, its hard to share my pain with him like he keeps asking me to when I then have to see how my pain hurts him, which hurts me.... vicious and endless cycle..
and really in a way I am GLAD it hurts him too.... I would hate to think that 13 years of working together, of the joy and pain of life worked in one direction which is being ripped into a billion pieces in order to create a new life in a new direction is a process only painful to me, and not to him too....
 
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My perspective is that if you just lose someone completely through divorce or whatever, you hurt a lot for a long time but it slowly gets better. If you are in a situation where you have the option of allowing that person to continue loving you despite also loving someone else, can you appreciate the attention for what it is or will you only ever be able to focus on not being the only one? What I have noticed in my divorced life is that I end up becoming friends with women who have active love lives and tell me about them. I don't end up dating people but I enjoy the interaction and attention more than when I'm completely alone.

So what I would really recommend to you would be to live completely alone for a while until you are getting over the pain of separation and loneliness and then see if you would rather have a shared relationship than no relationship. Of course, it might be hard to actually take that alone time without losing your partner completely but, at least in theory, it would allow you to heal from the pain and see what you want out of a relationship in a pain-overcome state. Probably others in this forum will have advice for you about how the pain-healing process goes when maintaining a relationship with a partner you share with another person, though, too.
 
finding

I have no desire to separate , khas is my husband and partner and best friend ...
I know this can work, I know it can be good and fulfilling and all of that.
I think one of my biggest issues is that I hate being alone, as a child of a single mother I babysat my 1yr old sister while my mom worked. I was 4, I think that my fear of being alone stems from that time.
Also I am 38 and have spent the last 21 years being a mom and a wife. For while I had a promising career but I have lost that through illness.
In my fear and dismay I have wrapped my life around khas and the kids. Thatneediness is unhealthy and only serves to push him farther away.

Thus my fear... without his undivided love and loyalty... who am I?
 
Two things I notice.
Ten years ago you felt unable to share your negative feelings with Khas until the evening actually happened.
Now, once again the same thing: because your pain at this situation causes him pain, you hold back (or at any rate you feel like holding back).
What he needs from you is that you do not hold back from telling it like it really is for you, both the good and the bad. At other times, you need to hear him without mixing in your feelings. At present the feelings of all three of you are tangling up in your head.
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I would like to suggest you take it in turns to talk. When it is your turn, focus on your feelings, not his. Maybe set a timer so you each get equal time listening and talking.
When it is his turn to talk, try to put your feelings aside while you listen, focus on his feelings while he is talking.
What is happening at present is when you talk, you are second guessing how he feels about it, or maybe he is interrupting and telling you how he feels about hearing what you say. That means that
what comes out is a mix of you and him. What is needed before you can get anywhere with this as a couple is for your discussions to have slices of pure you and slices of pure him.
So, take turns, both of you focus on person whose turn it is, no interrupting or responding during the other perons turn.
In your turn:
What is it about his new dating that excites you? Can you articulate that to him? Practice here on us if it helps get it clear for you, but it doesn't matter whether you tell us or not: it matters that you tell him.
What is it about his new dating that upsets you? Frightens you? Again feel free to use as to help you sort out what the issue is, but what matters is not us its telling him.
ln his turn:
Listen to what he is saying: you are good at hearing his feelings and this is the appropriate time to do so. During this slice of time use your well practiced skill in focussing on his feelings.
After you both had a turn, each of you say one thing you really like about the other, and take a break.
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Next time, swap round so whoever went first before goes second this time.
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Do the same with your friend. She needs to hear the real you speak clearly without second guessing her feelings: that will only happen if she gets a separate slot in which to speak to you. Try to say some of the positives and some of the negatives to her as well.
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Let go of the idea that you should be poly, or that you should be allowing him to be. At the same time, let go of the idea that he should be mono. The feelings you each actually have are perfectly fine feelings, whatever they are. The 'should feel' feelings just screw everything into a mess. No pre-conceptions either way, no oughts shoulds or musts. they all get in the way of what is.
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I trust the three of you. It is obvious in your post that you have two fine people there who both care for you. It is equally obvious that you care for both of them. When each of you is really hearing how it is for every one of you, including each of you hearing how it is for yourself, I trust that the right way will open to you all. It could be poly, mono, split, or something we cannot even guess at.
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Honesty hurts. It may get worse before it gets better, but work through it to wherever it goes and the way will open, and then it will get better. But to get past this thing you do have to untangle his feelings from yours. You may all need help to do that: basically all a relationships counsellor will do is to run the process I described above. Having a professional take care of the process can help, a good one won't give you answers but will walk with you all as you do the work yourselves.
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good luck. The far side of the Atlantic you've got someone rooting for you...
 
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Thus my fear... without his undivided love and loyalty... who am I?

I'm sensing here some significant degree of lack of self-esteem, and some long-lived and unresolved emotional "issues," as they are often called. I'd strongly recommend seeing a counselor / therapist and some diligent contemplative / mindfulness / meditative practice. You are not your role of mother or wife. You are a person, a human being, and your needs matter, and should matter to you.

Take baby steps, or big steps, but take steps to nurture and care for yourself and get to know yourself. Only when you care for yourself well can happy and healthy relationships with others naturally emerge. So this feels to me what you most need: self care, self-kindness, self-respect....

If need be, ask your partner to hold off on other relationships until your own is on a better footing. If he cannot or will not do that, you might want to let him go.
 
Your right in that we don't let each other explore talking out our own feelings without interrupting each other and internalizing. Personally the voice in my head never seems to shut up.
Maybe the timer is a good idea, our daughter and B are both gone for a week so its heavy talking time with limited interruptions.
I definitely have issues regarding my self worth and self identity.
I appreciate the listening and feedback very much!
 
baby steps

I decided to take a page from Anne Koller's book 'An unknown woman's and start this part of my life by figuring out who i am, I mean really am. I don't have a strong sense of self so how can I decide how I feel ?
I want this to work, khas has decided to face who he his and his wants and needs.
How can I do less?

I hate how sad he looked last night. He kept apologizing for not noticing how low my self esteem is and has been. I have tried to share my feelings but only I can fix it and life gets so busy it is easier to just keep going.
I am grateful in a weird way right now. Grateful that he trusts me enough to share, grateful for these awful feelings that made me stop and look inside.
And grateful most of all for the brutal honesty required on both of our parts.

I must admit though I could have lived quite happily without my husband falling in love with my close friend.
 
keep going... you are on the true path here. As you and K become more authentic to yourselves you will become more authentic to each other.
You say you could have lived without, etc. but were you living? really living in touch with your true self? were you following your destiny, or existing by force of habit, before this crisis?
follow the path you are on to self knowledge and self esteem and you will know when you get there that the price was worth the prize.
I will uphold you from time to time, as I remember your courage.
your trueBrit trueRiver Friend of Truth.
 
and I am broght back to this thread with some direct advice. I think it's from God, but whether you believe that or not the crucial thing is that you weigh this advice for yourself before you use it. If it seems good, do it, wherever the advice came from.
K is apologising. How you handle that is in two steps, neither of which is easy if they are done right, but will transform your relationship.
In a slot where you will not be interrupted, do these two things
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1. say 'you hurt me when you ...' and give a very brief. summary of how he hurt you (has to be something he has genuinely apologised for)
2. say 'and you are apologising now, and I can see/-feel/hear in my heart that you mean it. even when you hurt me I never stopped loving you, and I love you now, and I forgive you totally. I want us both to stop hurting over this. I am letting it go, and because I am forgiving you, I want you to let go of your guilty feelings too.
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You cannot take short cuts to forgiveness. it is not forgiveness to say 'it doesn't matter' without acknowledging the hurt. and forgiving someone before they are truly sorry is just setting yourself up for the same again.
Forgiveness is the most essential thing in any relationship involving a human being. we get things wrong, and if we don't forgive the hurts build up, and if we forgive before the other person has shown they are sorry, the hurts repeat. Religious people call this step of being truly sorry 'repentance', and whether you believe in God or not, in dealing with your human relationships, repentance always comes before true forgiveness.
That applies in monogamous relationships as much as in polyamorous relationships. It applies between friends, between brothers and sisters, between parents and children
On the self esteem hurt, K is showing you true repentance, opening the way for you to show him true forgiveness. It is your choice: will you forgive?
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You see, my lovely American friend, each one of those hurtful feelings is there for a reason, and the reason is to mend your relationship, to heal your life, and to lead you forwards and upwards.
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Both of you have a lot to forgive, and both of you have a lot of repentance to get through to clear out the garbage of years of not knowing how to communicate. For a while to come, you will be finding one issue after another to clean up; sometimes K forgiving you, sometimes you forgiving K, but always repentance before forgiveness or it won't work
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the worst lie anyone ever told us, was the lie that repentance is only towards God. No! whether God exists or not, repentance and forgiveness are essential between us as fellow humans.
And if God does exist, (and I am not pushing my own brand of religion here) if God does exist how can we do repentance and forgivenes with the unseen God if we have not learnt it first with our most loved humans?
They don't teach that in school in the UK: we get a lot of useful stuff about kings and algebra and spelling, but no help in how to do relationships. No wonder we screw up big time, on both sides of the big pond.
you are in my heart
River~~
 
I posted on your husbands blog, but wanted you to know, I read a bit of yours too. :)

I think you two need to pat yourselves on the back, for continuing to communicate. Yes, maybe the communication could happen in better ways, and be more fulfilling, but you are both here ! That is a GREAT STEP !

There are many people, who cant get their spouse to read info, nevermind post. The fact you both write here, is going to help you. It says a lot.

THAT gives you both a chance to say what you have to say.

You are on the right path...give yourselves some credit ! :)
 
I decided today it's not about making love, it's about making life.

The only thing that really matters is that we keep making life the best possible for each other and for ourselves and our family.

I am feeling bitter and angry today, unlovable and all things ugly. So for today I will concentrate on the new truth I have found.

May you all spend today making life with the ones you love.
 
pretty good night

I have spent most of the last 2 days reading Mohegan's blog. I envy your commitment to searching out your own fears and facing them.

My daughter and B just came home from vacation Tuesday evening. They were heading to the same part of the country so shared flights to keep our daughter from having to fly alone. Khas picked them up at the airport and at first I felt pretty left out. We talked and I felt better by the time I saw B again today.

We spent hours catching up and working on our sculpting and just talking about life. I shared with her where I am at in my journey and what it means to me. I also told her about reading a blog of the journey of another woman who has traveled the same path.

Today was a crappy fibro day (which we both have as well as a medical dictionary of other stuff) so we were happy to accomplish little besides talking. She was surprised I am serious about moving forward with this poly lifestyle. She wanted to know why I would agree when its not 'my' thing. I explained that as much as it hurts and I don't really like the self-analysis part. The relevant fact to me is simple. I love him, I want him to be a happy and complete person in every way that means to him. So my choices are simple, journey with him or part ways. I am not ready to throw away my marriage and our love. I reserve the right (as do we all) to say to him someday " I am sorry, but you are going somewhere I am not prepared to follow"... I am not there and will not go there without trying.

Khas came over after work and we all went to dinner and shopping. It was ok, B and I held his hand going into the restaurant and though it hurts it didn't kill me :D

Had some teenage drama and left them together while I came home to rescue our daughter from the vagaries of the city bus. He isn't home yet but I am feeling ok.

Thank you for all that so many of you have shared.

I do not *want* to look at my issues, I do not *like* discovering that I have been so selfish and wanted everything my way or in a way that I thought was most productive and stable for my children.

Change is hard and if it was easy more of us would do it right?

Oh and this honesty thing is sure a double edged sword!
 
another day

Yesterday we spent the day together at a Scottish festival ..

Throughout the day I think I handled everything ok. I tried to stay true to my self and khas and bev, I had many moments of jealousy envy and insecurity and stepped away to look at other merchants while I got myself under control.

I have no desire to inflict my vitriol on either of them.

And no I wasn't living true to myself before this. If I had been I would have known I am more than a.wife and a mother. On my journey through the "who am I" puzzle I have discovered I am a good friend. One more step.

I didn't understand before how envious I am of B. That is not a healthy feeling.

When we got home from the festivities we hit the hot tub, I was very uncomfortable and so I left and went in to shower. Two weeks ago I would not have done this so it was a good step.

I do not like feeling uncomfortable in my home but khas and I talked and he pointed out its his home too. Very true and so we.defined some boundaries and came up with a plan for where my private space is so I can escape when I need to.

Productive painful.... progress.
 
Rough night, I spent many hours writing in my journal and thinking and reading on these boards other people's journeys.

This morning I find myself looking at him and thinking... fuck, I'm really going to miss him.

I am not going to stop trying, not going to stop finding what it is that hurts me so much and most importantly why...

I was basically weaned on the reality that sex is about your body and can't touch your soul. Khas taught me it doesn't have to be that way. That sexual intimacy is about sharing that piece of your soul with the person that you *choose*

The thought of him sharing that with someone else, the process of watching his feelings evolve for B and seeing them step slowly and lightly ever closer to that physical emotional and complete sharing .... just leaves me aching and trembling and so very sad.

time to call those damn therapists back... school starts for our daughter tomorrow so I need to focus on that for the rest of today and let this process percolate in the back of my mind instead of the front....
 
learning

Yesterday Khas took the day off work and as it was the first day of school for the girl we spent the day with more talking.

I think we got farther this time. See we have discovered we have completely different views of what marriage means.

To me you marry someone when you love them and want to spend the rest of your life with them. No you don't expect that they will fulfill all of your needs, however those that they don't fulfill going in to the marriage are ones that you are prepared to live with.

Just like the little foibles we all have, yes this can be viewed as a sacrifice, but I never thought of it that way. I love him and no he doesn't like to dance or be social or enjoy the moments of life with giggles and waving at fire trucks.... but that's ok, that's him and I can live with that.

To Khas marriage is something you embark on when you find the person you love and want to spend the rest of your life with. Period.

I may not have got that completely correct but that is my interpretation.

So with B it seems that she fulfills the needs he has for music and spirituality, things I am apparently too grounded in the realities of life to really be able to encourage and *spark* in Khas.

I must say that did hurt, I have a hard time being the rock, the one who makes sure we make it day to day and week to week. Unfortunately the fibro doesn't do much to help me keep the basics on track so when I am down it effects the whole fabric of our lives.

I have a hard time thinking of him loving her the way he loves me, so we compromised. For now he is pursuing a FWB type relationship with B and we are both open to the knowledge that what he wants and what we hope to happen in a few years is for the relationship to be stable enough to join into ours more permanently.

I have a lot of issues with B too, she also hurt me with all of this and I am working through that as well.... *sigh*

So I have had a choice in this all along, live with it and learn to love the truth of the expanded knowledge of who Khas is inside... or leave.

I have chosen to stay, I am feeling better in some ways today. Not real great right now as he is at her house and I told him to do whatever he feels is good for him right now. I am not in his head, heart or body so if he is ready to take their relationship to a more physical realm that is totally up to him.

I just hope I can handle any emotional fallout in a non-destructive and non-attacking manner.

Oh I got a new tattoo yesterday, I really think that helped. Now my kitty fairy guide is with me permanently. :D
 
Wow you read through my whole blog? You poor thing :)

It sounds to me that you are at a similar place as I was. What helped me was finding myself again. Chronic illness can take away your sense of self. I've had fibro since I was 12, but it didn't get debilitating until the last few years. It's hard to adjust to the new person you become at that point. You no longer are who you used to be. That's a damn hard place to find yourself.

As painful as parts of it were, Karma dating Cricket really helped me focus on me. I chose to use my time alone to my work on myself. I explored things I wanted to do. And I surprised myself finding I could still do what I used to, just a bit of adaptation was needed.

I looked inward a lot and I reformed my beliefs. This was extremely helpful. I stopped living for the past. It was never coming back. I chose to carry the parts I could and leave the rest in the past. Exploring the new me was now an adventure instead of a loss. How many people get the chance to reinvent themselves?

I hold strong to the belief that every emotion is a learning opportunity. I don't mind the pain, because it has as much to teach as the good times, if not more so. I chose to remind myself that Karma and I both have freewill. I cannot force him to stay or be happy any more than he can for me. But I can choose to make sure that in our time together he gets the best me I have to offer. If our relationship doesn't work, it is not going to be because I drove it/him away with my failure to thrive.

That's part of where happy healthy sane came from. It's rule for all of my relationships. Friendships, marriage, oso's, and mostly the relationship I have with myself. How can I expect anyone to be happy with me if I am not.

And the fun part was that the more I found myself again, the more that I was more than this broken body laying in bed, Karma and I began enjoying our time together a lot more. We began working on things together. We began taking the time to communicare. To show love and caring within our communication.

It does get easier if you allow it. If this is something you are willing to live with. It may be that is just not the life for you. But if you are willing to work on it, on your own and together, it can be a good thing. The more I found love for myself, the easier it was to find joy and love for Karma and his other relationships.

Belief in and love for myself allowed me to lose the envy and the jealousy. I lost the self doubt. I lost the comparisons. When all of that is gone, it's a lot easier to see the situation for what it is.

I really wish you luck. It is a hard road and takes a lot of self work. But it is possible.
 
two kinds of jealousy

dear justLost,

late on Aug11th (or early on 12th, not sure of your timezone) you wrote this:

The relevant fact to me is simple .
I love him, I want him to be a happy and complete
person in every way that means to him.

Or, in my words, you want your beloved to flourish: hold fast to that thought in the difficult times, whether you use my words or yours.

Only, it is hard at times to keep that feeling, innit? sometimes you really mean it, at others you don't feel it at all and remind yourself that even when you don't feel it, you still *choose* to mean it. That is normal. It is a hard committment you have chosen, sometimes.

I hope what I will say below will help to increase the times when you feel like that, and help to reduce the times when you find it hard.

Think back to when one of your children were small, and on their own (just one Child) on a trip with Dad: maybe just to get an ice cream, maybe Child helped Dad get the shopping, maybe a whole day out, or whatever, think back...

Were you jealous of Child for having Dad's time and attention? (some women are), Were you jealous of Dad for having Child's time and attention? (some women are).

If you were jealous, think back, how did you control that jealousy, did you overcome it? if so, how?

I bet, if you ever suffered that parental jealousy, the way you found that was most powerful to overcome the green eyed monster was to notice how good Dad is with my Child: notice how Child flourishes with Dad, cos he gives things that I can't. And also to notice how Dad really flourishes in the company of Child, cos Child gives to him something I haven't got.

Or maybe you got lucky on that form of jealousy? maybe it never even occurred to you that some parents have to cope with that. Then those thoughts, the ones about enjoying your beloveds flourishing in each other's company, those thoughts and the joy that comes with them were so strong in you at the time that jealousy, the green eyed monster, ran off and lurked in a dark corner waiting for an easier target.

Either way, that is your #1 weapon now against the green eyed beastie. To be sure, what you are witnessing and imagining between husband and best friend, what you are witnessing now is a different kind of love than between your husband and your child, a sexual love that more easily fuels jealousy.

The beastie has an easier target this time. Even so, the #1 weapon is up to the challenge.

There are things Khas has mentioned that he gets from his time with B and he doesn't get from you. You have three ways you can choose to go with that information.
3- you can choose to stay angry about it
2- you can choose to add those things to your own life so that Khas can get them at home in future
1- you can choose to focus your mind, as often as you remember, on how B makes K flourish

Let's look at those options in detail. Option 3 got that number as it is the third best choice. It leads to divorce, and you are clear you do not want to go that way except as a last resort.

Option 2 is what you will get from agony aunts in the press, and if you were sharing your life on a mono forum. It is the right option for some people.

From what you have posted earlier in this thread, I will honestly say it does not sound like this is the option for you, and I will tell you why. Then I want you to check out what I say inside your soul, and if it does not fit then ignore it.

You have been trying so hard for so long to be what Khas wants, and it has zapped your self esteem. Of course it has, you stopped being the real You to your husband, and the woman he loved during that time was part real, part just you acting out his wishes. No wonder you were losing self esteem, you were losing your self!

OK, so that leaves the #1 option, the #1 weapon against jealousy.

Take those things that Khas needs, and that you cannot give him, and thank B for helping your husband flourish in those ways, thank her for saving you the task of having to take up a fake interest to keep your husband happy. I bet you are not ready to do that yet, but till you are, feel how it would be to. say that to B. 'Hey B, you really help K to flourish when you ...'

Please don't fake that: do not say that to B till you can say it honestly. That leads back into the same low self esteem trap. For now, the thing is just to feel how it would be when you imagine saying it.

One day, when you do this thought exercise your soul will feel joy, then is the time to say it to B. This joy has been called 'compersion' by some folk who write about polyamory. Compersion is the antidote to jealousy. Once you have felt it the first time, it will come easier the second time, and will come again faster every time after that.
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And then there are other things K needs that he is getting from B that you would really like to be able to give, not just to keep K happy but because these are things you feel are part of the real you. Maybe you gave them up when you became a homemaker? Maybe you never even got started on them because you became a homemaker instead, for your beloved husband and your beloved children. Why should B step in now and do those things that I wanted to do?

This form of jealousy is different, and the antidote is different.

Here is my suggestion on those things. Pick the one that you most want to have in your own life right now.

Say to K, and in a separate conversation say to B, that you are letting them have couple time together, but that you also want to spend time together as a three. Say to each of them, you are both ahead of me in X, but it is something I used to do / I always wanted to do. In return for giving you two couple time together, please can we do X all three of us together?

This will feel weird! Very!!!!!

It will also give you plenty more chances to feel jealous, as you see them together.

It will also help your heart to understand that B is no threat to you, she and K are in your life FOR YOU as well as for each other. Something similar worked for me: try it and see if it works for you as well.

I honestly think jealousy is a good emotion when it is about something we can do with a pair of partners. It is like hunger is good when we really need to eat: this sort of jealousy is given us for a purpose, to let our heart tell our mind that X is something I want to get back from my two partners.

You see someone eating whenyou are hungry, you feel jealous. you could get angry, but a more useful approach is to say 'I'm hungry too, can we share?'

These are just my thoughts: test them and if they don't work then drop them.

Let me know how you get on, if you try any of these suggestions, or any of my past ideas.

River~~
 
Hey there, Lost.

First off, you read our WHOLE blog?!? Wow.... If I tried that I think my eyes would fall out of my head :)

Secondly, a few questions for you. Remember, "I don't know yet" is a perfectly acceptable answer:

How does the fibro affect your relationship with Khas? Does he fill the shoes of 'caretaker' a lot, or do you struggle through by yourself with it? On a related note, how severe is your fibro? Mohegan tends to bounce all over the place with hers, ranging from "annoyingly achey" to "OMG I'm not moving from the bed today". And of course, there's never any real warning when it's going to randomly get bad. I'm asking those questions because, depending on your answers, I may have more insight on certain things here.

You mentioned being envious of B. Can you explain why you are envious of her? This question is more for your own benefit than anything else - if you can put that emotion and the reasons it surfaces into words, you can understand it a lot better. Now please understand, I am in no way saying that the envy (or pain, or anger, ect.) is somehow wrong or bad or something - you're allowed to feel whatever you feel, there's no "right" or "wrong" involved in that. But in my experience feelings like that tend to stem from an insecurity or a need not being met, or at least the fear of a need not being met. (And there's nothing wrong with having insecurities either, we all have a few. It took me forever to figure out what mine were.) If you can figure out exactly what and where those feelings are being caused by, it will be MUCH easier to deal with them.

That doesn't mean they just up and vanish overnight. Keep that in mind, and don't beat yourself up if you aren't just magically "cured" of those feelings after figuring out what is causing them. Like I said earlier, there's nothing wrong with you feeling those things. Determining what they are being caused by doesn't make them just go away on their own. They can be worked through and conquered, but it takes a lot of work, a LOT of trust, and a willingness to be exposed to the insecurities causing those feelings.

That is some scary shit :) You may not be at that point yet, and that's OK too: there's no "timetable" or "schedule" for figuring all this out, you have to go at your own pace.

You also mentioned tha the idea of Khas loving B the way he loves you is painful. Again, the answer to this may seem obvious, but it's more to help you figure things out than anything else - why? Why is that idea a painful one for you?

So now that I've given you all kinds of introspective, self-analytical things to think about, (I remember you mentioning that you hate doing that sort of thing), I'm going to duck and run before you throw something at me :)

Just remember, there is no "right" and "wrong" to your feelings, and you are not "doing something wrong" by feeling the way you are feeling. I know I keep going over that point, but I don't want you feeling guilty because you aren't happy and filled with glee over Khas's relationship with B.

OK, I'm getting off of here before I think of more questions to bombard you with.
 
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