stories in extended triad land

Thanks, Magdlyn. I've been reading about your situation, hugs back at you.

It's sad that AM's divorce is amicable but the marriage wasn't. Lots to work out, as a result... It does make things complicated when we've closed the door on our past relationship, and aren't sure what to make of the new one, yet. And don't have time to work on it, either. Sigh. We knew it would take time, we agreed to take and make the time. But sometimes there's simply no time, and being patient isn't always easy.
 
contact

Yay.

Feeling a moment of compersion. AM was here for dinner while WI was off with friends on a birthday dinner. Now, the two of them are together. While my kids were off, hiding away and reading voraciously (whee!), AM and I had a talk about WI and what was going on in her life. I'm not sure AM wanted to hear it - her closing the door has whacked WI hard, and that's a responsibility she can't afford, right now.

And still. They are together right now. They are talking, FINALLY connecting again. It means so much to me.

I don't know what it is. I never expected to feel what I feel about them being together. (Honestly, being the hinge of a V would have been FINE with me, I mean, really.) But when the two of them are together, it's just... peaceful. It's beautiful. The way they look at each other and kiss each other (god, I hope they kiss tonight). The way they flow. How each of them says, in a shocked voice, that this is "just like being friends, but more," and then their eyes glow. There's something utterly gorgeous about them.

I guess that's why it hurts to see WI feel so distant from AM, and to see AM feel so lost without WI. Neither is used to this, not like this. WI has never been non-monogamous, and there's a lot for us to work out when she says she was losing me because her bubble with AM was so intense. AM has always been non-monogamous, but never with a woman. This isn't SIMPLE for either of them. It involves a surprising level of change for both.

But it's intense, and it's easy for me to watch, and I totally melt when they are happy. I hope hope HOPE they work something out tonight. That they find a path back to each other. It would mean a lot to me.
 
ups and downs

In "closing the door," we decided to go slowly enough to avoid the drama. Given how last night went (they had an intense talk, really good, and then WI and I had an intense talk, also really good), it seemed that things were good.

WI and I talked about her lack of intentionality, for example: she let herself be swept off her feet, and forgot about me in the process of falling for AM. Sure, it was NRE, but she actively avoided engaging with me at times - she's now ashamed of that and says it was a mistake on her part, because she put unwanted distance between us. It's a lesson learned. We don't want to repeat that behavior, on the other side of the closed door. It means a lot to me that she talk about intentionality. Turns out that when I felt left out, it wasn't about sex, it was about ... passively being left out, and the lack of intentionality was worse than being left out, itself. So that was good to learn.

AM and I were close today, too. Good conversations, honest and open, great talking. Planning for how to see each other next. First suggestions of what to do on the other side of the closed door. Suggestions of what it might mean to date each other, not like before, but slowly and carefully opening up and walking into this new space. Good stuff.

And then the demons. I feel awful for AM, because her dark space arrived: hurt and alone. She was headed home, and it's the first night without her kids there, and without one of us visiting her. We each invited her to our house, each individually, full of tenderness and care. But she couldn't accept. She went home, lonely, defeated, hopeless, and untouchable.

I'm learning that it's not about us. The love is there. The invitation is there. The desire to share both our spaces is there. WI and I didn't even ask each other, because we knew AM was welcome here. The friendship and intimacy is offered with love. But AM couldn't take it in, tonight.

I feel sad when that happens. There's nothing I can do. She's welcome, and wanted, but nights like tonight can't accept it. I hope she's better tomorrow.

(Thanks for listening, whoever is reading. I've avoided blogging about the ups and downs, and this one feels pretty gentle, as such things go. Who knows if I'll keep blogging at this pace, but it seems like the time to do it is now, when I'm paying attention and trying to keep a record of what our lives are like...)
 
what now?

The tension of the past few days broke last night, when suddenly the "closed door" wasn't so closed. I spent the night at AM's, with WI's blessing (and after a HOT date with WI). AM and I talked, and started the conversation we've been avoiding so long. We shared how the relationship we've had was on unstable footing from the beginning, while their relationship was "smaller" but more secure. We opened up, slowly. We suddenly stopped holding back from the intensity that exists between us (and didn't go away two weeks ago, when she "closed the door"). We made love. We slept holding each other peacefully.

Today, AM and WI talked. AM wrote twice with STUNNING emails about what is inside her, what causes the push/pull dynamic, what she needs to work on alone and with us. It was a breakthrough moment. There's so much baggage in all our lives, and we're asking to be inside each other's core souls. There's a lot to work through.

It's astounding that we're starting. AM's writing is intense. Open, safe, vulnerable, and written by someone who knows she is loved. And WI and I (who have barely seen each other today - split parenting duties since early morning) are treasured, treasuring her, and treasuring each other as this happens.

I think the triad might return. But more safely this time...
 
date nights

Not much time to write...

What, it was only a two week lull? I guess so. Tomorrow night, AM and WI have a date. With my encouragement. We're all trying to navigate the feeling of safety...

The big deal, it seems to me, is that we're putting our relationships on equal footing. We in the married couple have opened up further, in a way that helps AM see the honest relationships with us both, rather than feel left out of our long-term bond. WI is freaking out a bit - she knows what she's doing, what we're all doing, in that all our actions point to seeking out a committed and balanced three way relationship, but she's totally unable to use those words. "I know that's what it is... I just can't say it or hear it, yet."

But both shiver when they talk about how they miss the other, and both need tomorrow night. I'm trying to help. And they both now know that I can be supportive and encouraging AND ALSO need some support and safety myself. They are trying to help me feel safe and connected, as it happens, too. We're much more open than we were in the mad dash of the summer and fall. Much more aware of each other's insecurities and fears. I expect I'll be fine tomorrow, in part because I know they are listening and holding on to me, even when they're with each other. Just like AM is here when I'm with WI, and WI is here when I'm with AM. But for a while, they were leaving me out, actively - that hurt us all, it turns out, not just me.

Gotta run, lots more to talk about and think about.
 
Too fast too soon. Learning.

Well, last week seemed to go really well, until it didn't. There was a "usual" blow-up on Thursday, and it led to a lot of problems over the weekend. As we get more careful about what we need to resolve, we realize that there's a lot to resolve, and the thing we need next is not so much resolution as learning to talk in a way that allows resolution. When people flood, they get defensive, and then all sorts of hard things are said that later need apologies or clarifications (or retractions, for that matter). It was a rough weekend.

What are the things we're struggling with? AM is just flooded by circumstances, and her past weighs on her present. Divorce, family issues, those exist in any divorce situation. But there's more to it, where I don't want to share her life story (and she has no interest in these boards to do it on her own). It's complicated. Suffice it to say that we're working on issues of safety and gentleness. She's opened up to us more than to others in her life, and that means entering into the painful zones of her life that she usually keeps hidden away. Nobody wants to be a bull in a china shop, but inadvertent comments lead me there, sometimes. I'm learning.

At the same time, her response to hardship has been to push against us really hard. This has hurt WI massively.

At some point, we are all going to need to sit down and apologize to each other. Saying "sorry" for a hurt is easy, but I mean apology in a deep way - the Jewish concept of teshuva. We're not there, yet. Too often, we don't feel safe in our conversations.

But all three of us are at the place of wanting to make honest changes to help each other feel safe. AM is worth the change in WI and my life, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this! And AM is doing something a little insane, for her, but she finds each of us worth it. So we are motivated to continue.

I just wish the lows weren't so goddamn low. It's painful to go through weekends like this. It's just HARD to go into such dark spaces and only slowly return from them. There's emotional bruising. I mean, WI and I have been married a while, these things happen in relationships as people grow and try to come together over difficult topics where there isn't enough understanding, yet, to make the togetherness easy. So I'm not worried that it's a horrible situation. This is hard. But it's painful, and I wish it weren't.

Last week was so nice. Through Wednesday, it was really lovely. And then things blew up. I suppose I could name details, but I'd rather name emotions. Riding the wave since then has been rough. Maybe we can work this out. We're trying, and that's the best we can do, so far.
 
I'm so sorry it's been tough and things were said that maybe shouldn't have been.
 
Thanks, Magdlyn.

The week from Thursday morning to about yesterday was really hard. Something started loosening yesterday.

WI and I are bruised by AM's actions, but have come to a place where we still really really really want her in our lives, and know that firm boundaries are needed to protect ourselves (individually, not as a couple) from how she hurts each of us. Volatility can be really dangerous. Happily, we've come to each other as best friends, in all this, and sure enough, continue to support each other's love for AM.

AM took about a week, and then ... suddenly, things were better. I saw her Tuesday. WI is with her tonight. AM has gotten roughly 37 invitations to things in the past 5 days, and has turned down most all of them, but she feels welcome AND empowered to say no. There was a phase where she said yes to everything out of fear that we'd never invite again, unless she was always present. Is it confidence? is it assurance?

Right now, AM and I are lovers again. WI and AM are not (well, okay, not that i know of. I mean, who knows what they're doing at this very moment, ha!). Maybe, slowly, they will reach toward a FWB status, and from there move toward a relationship again. They fell HARD for each other, and that's one of the reasons we blew up - it was too much too soon.

Right now, the goal is safety, trust, softness, and more safety. WI and I have been opening our marriage, and have found to each other in the process. We're not letting go of that. AND we're STILL opening to AM. She's welcome in the fabric of not just our individual lives but also our opened marriage. What she needs is to learn to accept the safety that is there - not feel left out, but feel welcome. She's welcome.

It turns out she can't accept what we're offering, yet. It's not the couple plus one scenario that is so dreaded, with us putting up walls and her pushing; she's being pulled to places she's not ready for, and it's taken us a while to learn that.

There's so much slowness to look forward to. Opportunities for intertwining. Or not. We'll see how it goes. If she's not ready for it, we slow down further. WI and I remain crazy about each other. We're also, still, after all this fucking hardship, crazy about her. She's such an amazing woman. Why not keep trying?
 
ow

Just downs this time. No ups.

AM dumped me. Said that she can't find with me what she wants, which is (in reality) a more monogamous, more partnered relationship. I have kids, spouse, a life that can't change enough to include her, according to her so she's leaving it behind. She can't take the hurt that comes from interacting - either in the moment, or later, after the moment when she is alone again.

If she'd been less volatile over the past few months, we could have worked in that direction. But her volatility made the thing she wants too difficult to happen.

Then again, she points out that if I was constantly present, she'd still need to leave. She's not ready for a relationship (she implies this, but I can sense its truth).

She never really accepted or used the key we gave her.

She never worked toward the merged Big Family that we thought we were trying to create.

She told me earlier this week that she never actually trusted me. Not because of what I did, but because she just doesn't actually trust anyone, really.

Also, she never actually articulated what she wanted. Only when I failed at it did she tell me what was going wrong, but speaking up and saying what she wants? That didn't happen. I have had to be a mindreader. It's been hard. I've tried.

WI is gone this weekend, so I'm alone with all this. I feel like I've worked through and with everyone else's insecurities and supported them along the way, and now at the end of it all, I'm the one getting dumped.

Looking at this list above, it's clear that we weren't playing with the same deck of cards. No trust, not accepting invitations into a shared space, not stating her intentions or goals, not willing to work with the life I have, not seeing the changes made to that life, not patient about the pace of change (when WI started monogamous and possessive, and those changes took time!). WI and I have tried plenty of ways to open up our marriage. But obviously, AM never wanted in.

Ow.
 
:( That sucks. Has she broken up with WI too? Why is WI away? Is she OK?

I reckon AM was too much on the rebound from her marriage, her divorce not even being finalized!

Triads are hard even with stable mature people.

Lick your wounds and know you did the best you could. "Opening a marriage" to let someone else in has a lot of cards stacked against it.
 
As always, Magdlyn, thanks for your kind words. WI was on a trip... And no, it's just way more complicated as to whether she's broken up with WI, as well.

Because, in a way, she's broken up with us, and not broken up with us. We're in a place where each of us can be intimate, but we're not the triad we were, and we're simply being deep, meaningful friends with someone in a space of crisis and unable to continue the relationship we've had - not because of us, not because of the relationship, but because of herself.

It's hard to go through this, of course. But after the awful space of the early weekend, it's been a lot of talk to figure out what is and is not my responsibility. Sure, I've been imperfect and all, but the space really is owned by AM, and her specific needs. It's not just the divorce for her. There's just so much going on all at once. We lived in a bubble for too long, and now it's all coming out at once.

Will we ever return to a triad? Doubt it. Will we survive this space as friends? Maybe. Will we help her as we can, because we love her, as she's in this space? Definitely. But it's a hard space for us.

The "opened marriage" space remains, in a way. I don't write about her much, but there's still EL in my life. We, as always, see little of each other, but are more flirty in the past 2 months than we've been in years. (Why? we have no clue, but relationships can be like that, right?) She's helping me with her insights into AM, and she and WI have talked a little. That relationship is safe in a way that it never was. We are opened up, if not attached to someone else, nor seeking anyone else. (I have never sought anyone else; I don't know how to date, and neither does WI!) So we are open, supportive, and strong with each other.

Actually, that space is worth commenting on. WI recognized how much it hurt her (not just me) that she tried to create an isolated bubble with AM. She doesn't want that anymore. What I have found fascinating is that my response has been to be more supportive of her spending time with AM. How can that be? But it's what I feel - as soon as I feel safe and secure, I don't mind their time together. Then again, AM is in a lousy place, so it's not like either of us is spending much time with her.

I'm sad about that. The old relationship is dead, and grieving takes time. But there's also a real relationship right now, where AM wants to be held, and that is what we have now. Later, we will have something different. Right now, this is what she wants and can do, and this is what we have.
 
as soon as I feel safe and secure, I don't mind their time together.
...
Right now, this is what she wants and can do, and this is what we have.

I think these are key; at least, they have been for me. When I feel safe, I am able to be far more flexible and I am less prone to being triggered.

Glad that you are feeling safe. Perhaps AM is not, for reasons that may or may not have to do with your relationship, and this makes it much harder for her.

Kudos for accepting where she is and trying to be supportive.
 
Glad that you are feeling safe. Perhaps AM is not, for reasons that may or may not have to do with your relationship, and this makes it much harder for her.

No, AM is not feeling safe at all. I don't mean to be rude to her when I say that it's not about me, because on the surface it seems to be about me, but she has so many things going on that feeling safe takes on different meaning, and requires different engagement, than just concerns me. One way to think of her trust issues, for example, is that it doesn't matter how trustworthy I am, she might still not trust me. That's not about me, sadly. I wish I could "prove" myself, meet some standard. But I don't think I can.

Instead, I'm really trying to listen and help her with herself, even as she wants to walk away because she doesn't really want to be helped. As she put it, "I don't LIKE people taking care of me. So DON'T." Then, she asks me to hold her.

Have I mentioned that it's complicated.

Kudos for accepting where she is and trying to be supportive.

I'm trying really hard. She's where she is. Can I be there beside her? Can WI? So far, the answer is yes.

Where AM is right now requires, in a way, the most loving of friendship, the most intense of attention and care, but a certain distance from the place of being inside her problems. Being beside her as she lives her life, that's far more meaningful, right now.
 
big family moment

Are we broken up? Not really.

Are we loving friends? More accurate.

Are we sharing our lives in interesting ways? Definitely:

Our kids miss her, so they dive bombed her house yesterday. Laughter and cocoa and goofing off. WI and AM got to talk, touch a little bit, be near each other in midst a tense space, and it was warm and good.

Turns out her kids made us all valentines. Awwwww. Even I got one. Neato!

So there are still these echoes of persisting interactions and they feel good. Saw AM last night, and she was still in a good mood. No talking about us talking, nothing serious. Just talk about work, parenting, and hilarious (and dirty) jokes about all sorts of things.

Nights like last night make all this worth it. AM and WI have a date, soon, where I hope they get to experience the same...
 
I continue to stink at blogging.

WI and I have officially "let go" of AM, who is retreating into her own life in order to heal some parts of her life. She says she can't be with us until she does this, and that she continues to feel what she's felt for a long time: she's never wanted to be with anyone as much as she wants to be with each of us, and the two of us together. It's just that the fall went too fast by far, she asked for things she'd never dreamed of asking for before, and we weren't able to give them at that time. In a yin/yang moment, the things we WERE able to give, even as stepping stones to her bigger vision, were things she couldn't accept because she wasn't willing to accept them inside herself. She wants to retreat now, in order to find back to us. She doesn't know how, but she's trying.

This has caused WI and me different kinds of crazy sadness, where we've tried to be there with each other as we each struggle with our independent relationship with her, and provide the strength that one of us might not have at a given moment. What's clear is how much we opened up, how much we built her into a new definition of our marriage, how much we want her to be with each of us, individually, the other of us, individually, and maybe even to return to a trio. It's ironic to me that WI, who fought hardest against a triad in the beginning (while AM and I dreamed of it) was accepting the desire for one, just as AM was pulling back and recognizing that dream and reality didn't match at all, for her.

So we are in a place of having let go - but still talking a lot. Each of our "I let go of you" statements has given AM the safety she's been asking for. She is processing her past. There's so much to talk about, so much for her to live through. She's sharing it with us - a sign of trust that I don't take lightly. She says she doesn't want to be partners, and can't be lovers or even friends while on retreat into her own life, but she's being more open than before - just not "as friends." It makes no sense to me - the words don't matter, the actions do. And her actions are ones of love, trust, and tenderness.

Perhaps this is a stage, and we will return to triad-land. Perhaps this is a separation and we have all gotten out before it got worse. We'll find out.

We are all deeply supportive of each other, when nobody is feeling hurt. WI and AM developed something amazing that has nothing to do with me, and I support the hell out of them. Same with WI supporting AM and me. Plus, AM was supporting WI and me, as well... so it's a round robin of support, when all goes well. WI and I are also fiercely loyal to each other (even in the hardest times, even when we are the cause of the hard times in each other) and we have included AM in that loyalty. AM basically has asked us not to be so goddamn fiercely loyal - she can't take it, doesn't want to be loved. Um, okay We don't have to talk about it. We just act on it.

So that's where we are right now. I suspect that this stage may last a long time. I miss AM, the exuberant woman of last summer and early fall. But what happened since then has shown that this was the outside-AM. The inside-AM has much to work on. That she's showing it to us as she works on it... it tells us we're on the inside. Just not by name. It's not a triad, by name, but we're still the only people she talks to about this. Maybe this will bring us closer. Or give us good reasons not to. Either way, we'll know.
 
Letting go, alone, isolated, ... or not

[Based on a different thread, I'm moving from initials to names. WI = Willa from now on, and AM = Amy from now on. Let's see if I can keep this straight!]

Saturday was all about letting go. And yet, not 45 minutes after a deeply emotional, sad, and yet hopeful conversation on Amy's couch, Willa and I got an email from Amy, talking about her past. That conversation continued through Sunday. It was more open, more raw, more honest and forthright than SO MANY of our past conversations. Turns out that Amy has really strong reasons for holding back from talking to us about her past, about her divorce, and more. She's had strong reasons for not wanting to let us in.

And yet, by telling us all about it, she let us in. She just needed to feel safe with us - and that meant letting go of some perfect dream of Big Family and letting her flawed family just be... flawed. And you know what? I love her for it. It felt wonderful to open up to her in response to her opening.

She said on Saturday that she couldn't be friends. What's happened in the 48 hours since then is deeper than friendship. It's a trust, tenderness, and genuine honesty that belies any sense of "letting go." We've had to let go of expectations, silly little things based on NRE dreams of perfection. We're in the real deal now. And she's still worth it, to me.
 
Holy shit - this is one of the most raw and real things I have ever read.

I teared up on a number of occasions and I feel for all three of you. Just wanted to post and tell you your story has had a real impact on how I am examining my own families move to opening up and how I'm dealing with it.

Thank you so much for sharing this!
 
Thanks, juber, for reading and finding something valuable in all this.

Willa, Amy, and I continue to talk. It's an up and down situation, as always.

Amy and I had a really nice day this past week, but after I left her place, we went through the usual hard space of wondering how to REMAIN close to each other when not in the same physical location. After saying "let go" and "can't even be friends, if we can't be partners," we were in a totally magical place for a few hours. Everything felt like at the beginning, easy and connected and shared, resonating across a thousand conversations, just feeling happy. It was amazing. Our bodies talked in ways I hadn't expected to return to. It almost felt like the opposite of what happened over the weekend. But afterward, it was rough, a sense that it only works when it works, and we can't count on anything when we aren't together -- and we're not together enough.

At the same time, Willa is grieving, hard. She misses Amy terribly. It hasn't just been that she went from monogamy to a serious, committed relationship with someone other than me, changing her identity (and struggling with how to live in a closet, as a result). It's also been that she changed her sexual identity. She deeply, passionately, and sexually loves Amy, in a way that she'd never have thought she could love a woman. Letting go of expectations for a long-term committed relationship is really ripping her apart.

As part of trying to work this out, she's been talking to a counselor who has lots of experience with women who recognize in their 40s that they're lesbians.... and end up leaving their husbands. The counselor has been a bit shocked to hear that my wife really doesn't want to leave me, and the questions my wife hears keep assuming a monogamous world. It's been frustrating to her. This idea that we really DO want to be intertwined, that my wife DOES want to stay with her husband... it's new for the counselor. If only we lived in a larger town...

I hope things with Amy work out. I hope Amy finds to the strength she's said she's looking for. She says she's never wanted to be with anyone as much as she wants to be with the two of us. I hope we find back to it. I miss her. The magical night this past week felt amazing; I want that space back.
 
That's it.

Well, Amy walked away.

Since she's decided that we can't be partners, we also can't be lovers and we can't be friends, either. Being near me hurts her, because she has decided that she can't have what she wants with me.

Frankly, the demons of her past are too large. I talked to a counselor friend of mine about it (finally came out of the closet about the relationship, now that it's over...) and he totally predicted everything she's saying. Given the details of her past, he knew. A split personality, where I am the source of such pain because of how far I went inside, and I am the source of such joy because of... how far I went inside.

This hurts like hell.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the way we nearly had a triad. I was damn wary of any couple privilege, and we worked hard. We kept opening up and opening up and opening up, wanting to create a single home shared across two houses. Where in the very early parts there was an idea that we might end up a V and not a triad, they kept getting closer, and it seemed like it could happen. We were ready to tell the kids (once the divorce was final) and our larger world (once other milestones were passed). We were ready to be partners across a new spectrum, to create something much larger. Two pairs of arms to hold each individual - and it felt so close to true.

But Amy decided that I could never be the partner she wanted. The problem is that she never defined what that was, only told me when I was failing at it. Worse, in the past few weeks she has revealed ever more ways in which she was holding back information about herself or her choices in a way that deeply affected everyone. She'd blame me for things she herself was cause of. For many reasons, it's only gone downhill for the past two months.

Amy's got demons. It sucks. I hope she finds herself. But it won't be with me walking beside her on the path, and I doubt the path leads back to me. As my counselor friend said, someone with her past has a lot of work to do before they can accept the place I went in her heart and feel safe trusting anyone who made it that far. That sucks and it hurts like hell.

Sigh. Time to go grieve.
 
Quiet

All quiet on the triad front.

Except that, of course, it's not. Amy and I have talked a little bit. Willa and Amy have made a joke or three about how Amy is living in Toledo (not where we live), so not entirely gone. Amy commented that it's a trap door that gets her there, no actual travel time needed. So there's some lightheartedness involved.

I think what I'm grappling with are the changes in Amy, ones she never spoke out loud, but that really affected us. She was holding back from merging our family times because it would have meant us being involved with her ex - but did she tell us this? no, not at all, yet it totally affected us. She also seems to have changed her expectations and desires for what she wants. While Willa and I were working on our marriage, moving toward an openness and supportive marriage structure that we'd never imagined, Amy was impatient and seems to have given up. It feels like we made changes to bring her into each of our lives (that's the supportive part - each of us being supported in a relationship with Amy) but Amy, along the way, gave up and didn't want that. Communication would have been really really helpful.

Amy has said that she's going to work on things while she's gone. Some of those are external things like housing, job, and so on. Some are internal, like trust, and hopefully also communication. I'd like to be the best friend to her that I was a year ago, but times have changed. It hurts to know that she changed and didn't communicate about it as it happened (while jabbing at me hard when I was anything less than prescient in what was going on in my life).

The low level of talk we're engaged in kind of sucks, but does show that we have sparks of laughter, waiting to happen again. For all the hardness of the weekend, some serious moments of tenderness have arisen, too. That's also nice. The reasons of our being together are still there. The flaws probably still are, too.
 
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