the agony aunt speaks.

No, dammit, I'm only tiny on the outside.
I'll just start calling you "TARDIS-girl"!
:D

I have ranted many times about me being in the minority because I am "just poly" - I don't do SCA, am not Pagan, am not into Kink (in the traditional definition), don't really want anything that Swinging offers. Have no problem if others want that, but it really does seem like I am the rarity.

I have seen some pretty messed-up folks hiding their dysfunction under the guises of poly or kink (or both). The idea of actually having stable relationships *before* starting into things like this seems to escape them.
 
Sometimes it just can't work out.

I feel bad when I have to explain to a nice person, for a second time (!), that we have fundamental incompatibilities. It's a letdown for both of us, though I'm strong enough not to try and get around the stuff that will never work. I accept what is. Others have a harder time.

But DADT is never an option for me, and I will not sequester my cats (where would I?!) because a lover doesn't like them.

So it goes.
 
Dear you (and a tangent on kindness)

We never loved in this life, and we probably won't, but we may in the next, and we do in my dreams.

This is enough to keep me happy: just the freedom to love, even if I never say so (again). And it is enough to keep me away except for the odd social occasion. But the joy I feel when I dream, and the energy that extends into my love for CdM, that amazes me. It reassures me that I'm not just looking to share a love. I'm looking to be shared as well.

I don't have to give you up to love him. I don't have to give him up to love you. I can make room in my heart for both loves.

. . .

On ethics, and why I'm being gentle this time:

I remember what it was like to learn hard lessons about privilege. My mother leaned so left she was Red and she advocated a woman's strength to the point of independence (she didn't have the language or the room for interdependence in her life). What she did not have was a grounding in the kind of concepts that the people I knew had studied. Nothing in my second-wave reading had ever taught me that, either. So I crashed and burned hard. I went through waves of my own.

Why should I do this?
Why shouldn't I do this? So reasonable!
Why should I be reasonable? I'm owed reason!
Don't we owe each other reason?
But I miss the old way of doing this!
But you're hurting others!
But I used to know how to do this!
And now I don't?
...no.

So learn.

I see this happening now.

I could have used kindness when it was happening to me.

I am going to try to show kindness now that I recognise the process in someone else.

Fight with me if you want to pick a fight. I know this poly thing pretty well by now. I've processed a lot of my shit and come to own it. Raise your hand if you never had shit to process! -- Why do I not see a room full of waving hands?

Learning how to do this at all is pretty daunting. Try to remember when it was you. In fact, look at your own damn triggers and examine whether you can even tackle the topic from a levelheaded place. I can't debate abortion rights; I can't stay calm, and my bias will always show. I have my reasons. Since I know how I'll react (i.e. RAAAAAGE) I don't get involved.

Then leave the teaching to the people who aren't going to RAAAAAGE.
 
In fact, look at your own damn triggers and examine whether you can even tackle the topic from a levelheaded place. I can't debate abortion rights; I can't stay calm, and my bias will always show. I have my reasons. Since I know how I'll react (i.e. RAAAAAGE) I don't get involved.

Then leave the teaching to the people who aren't going to RAAAAAGE.
This is great. I have been guilty into falling into that anger place a few times, and I really have to stop before hitting the button that posts and think about whether what I am saying is really furthering the conversation or just the outpouring of my own stuff. Sometimes I do it better than others.

I think that a sure sign of maturity is the ability to do this most of the time.
 
I have seen some pretty messed-up folks hiding their dysfunction under the guises of poly or kink (or both). The idea of actually having stable relationships *before* starting into things like this seems to escape them.

Yup. I've seen it too. And not just polyamory or kink. It boggles my mind when monoamorous people want to engage in a relationship with a partner and have done ZERO work on themselves.

The first tier or relationship in ALL relationship models, IMHO?

The one of (me <--> me).

How do I related me to myself? If I do not know my own self, if I avoid knowing my own self well, then how on Earth am I to articulate my wants, needs, and limits to another person in a monoship? To several others in a polyship? Good golly, in a BDSM kink scene?
In fact, look at your own damn triggers and examine whether you can even tackle the topic from a levelheaded place.

I've experience emotional flooding at times -- and it is not fun. I agree with CdM -- it is a sign of maturity/self control to recognize "Wait! I'm emotionally flooding now! I cannot continue this conversation in a useful way at this time. I'm checking out to self care, we can regroup when calmer."

And there we go right back to the (me <--> me) tier of relationship, no? ;)

Nobody is perfect all the time. But I think that being self-aware most of the time is a Good Thing and something to aspire to.

GG
 
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I've experience emotional flooding at times -- and it is not fun. I agree with CdM -- it is a sign of maturity/self control to recognize "Wait! I'm emotionally flooding now! I cannot continue this conversation in a useful way at this time. I'm checking out to self care, we can regroup when calmer."
I am getting to that point in a certain thread right now - since it has the danger of spilling into other threads, I will probably need to take a big step back for a while, until the tone changes to one that I can contribute to more effectively.
 
I've experience emotional flooding at times -- and it is not fun. I agree with CdM -- it is a sign of maturity/self control to recognize "Wait! I'm emotionally flooding now! I cannot continue this conversation in a useful way at this time. I'm checking out to self care, we can regroup when calmer."

And there we go right back to the (me <--> me) tier of relationship, no? ;)

Nobody is perfect all the time. But I think that being self-aware most of the time is a Good Thing and something to aspire to.

It's been a rough process. I'm looking back at my own behavior toward some people and thinking that I could have given them a little more benefit of the doubt, or backed away and just not gone there. But past is past, and I can't change it.

What I can do is learn from those who have been there and felt that. I appreciate having a term now for that overwhelmed feeling: "emotional flooding". Describes the feeling perfectly. It's like I'm treading water and I left my life vest on the Titanic; I will drown if I don't grab that floating ring. Or climb onto the giant frelling door sailing by, to keep with the theme. ;)

I feel also as if people are only going to know me now as "that woman who defended that misogynist". But I've been there, in my own way, and I can't regret the actions I took. I said what I felt, and if people decided to direct their ire at me, fine. I'll keep being what I consider sensible until I'm popular again or some such.
 
"Emotional Flooding" -- you can Google it to find coping tips. It is a phrase I wish I had known in my early 20s because it would have given me a better handle on what I was feeling.

But how can you research and understand something that you do not know by name? When you only know you know.... something?

So much easier to find it when you know what it IS rather than finding it when you know what it is NOT.

GG
 
A funny story that's part of a sad one

I'm watching Gordon Ramsay, right, and he's in the kitchen, so there's lots of dishes clinking and clanking.

Only the clinking continues into the commercials. Well, nobody's going to break in and load our dishwasher. Mum stayed home today.

. . .

They're teetering on the fence between divorce and staying together. It is no easier to watch when you are 26 than when you are 16 or 6. At least when you are 6, you don't know or wonder whether you'll have a roof over your head when all's said and done. Nobody expects you to be strong.

I tried to be strong. I fell on my face. I had a massive panic attack which sort of alerted them to the whole "cannot cope" part. Then I cried, finally, over the change to my happy-ish home. When I cry, it's a bloody torrent. I honk into my handkerchief and boaters on Canandaigua Lake look around for the foghorn.

Nobody's been entirely healthy physically, either. Mum got sick first, then Dad (his wasn't as miserable). I'm trying not to get it. I get flu, I can't move, and I have to be able to see Jessica at St Joseph's tomorrow. This appointment is the key to so many doors: to employment I can manage (love you, VESID), to disability payments, to a psychiatrist costing under $150/appointment. I miss this one and I'm screwed.

So I just won't miss it. Even if I'm drugged to the gills and come in with a piece of paper listing everything I need (in case I am incoherent), by God I'll see this woman and be damned to any flu.

. . .

About the most stable part of my life is the poly. We're living proof that poly/poly/mono works in a V formation. Sure, I'm secondary by practicalities, but love? No, I mean plenty to CdM, and M likes me well enough that her problems are only with the poly side of my existence. So if I'm dull, it's because we're fine.

We're the part that works.
 
DADT? Naaah, it's just cheating.

There is, she says, a COLOSSAL FUCKING DIFFERENCE between poly and what's going on right now behind my mother's back.

It is NOT "don't ask, don't tell" if you DIDN'T ASK your original partner whether zie consented to that arrangement. Which she didn't.

A short thought? A short temper.
 
And you would think that some people had been on enough poly fora in the past to understand that, wouldn't you?

*hugs*
 
I aten't dead

If you're the praying kind, please pray I can move forward through my family of origin's problems in a peaceful, calm manner. This is blowing me wide open to growth, but also to pain. I think they go together.

I'm happy with my therapist. I'm discovering support I didn't ever think I'd have. Of course CdM and M are always there (CdM literally by my side, tonight. Poor darling, he's dozing and trying to ice his back).

I wish I had a time machine so I could take all of GalaGirl's blog threads and show my parents good, sensible advice fourteen years ago, when they might have been able to save things. As it is, they've been broken for so long that there truly is no fixing the relationship. When we're good, we're very good... and when we're bad, we're a disaster. I'm mourning the family dynamic, odd as it sounds. It only worked some of the time, but when it worked, I felt so safe. Now I don't. I'm figuring out how to stand on my own two feet and, on bad pain days, my cane! But damn, I wasn't ready! I thought I had time. I lost so many years to the crazy and now...

...and now...

...I can only wonder what Christmas will look like this year. How odd.
 
Aw... hang in there! *hug*

It is never easy when parents are having problems. Even as an adult child of theirs it is hard to watch. :(

My spouse and his siblings are adult children of divorce. While they don't need the parents like child children do -- a divorce still is felt and trickles across all family interactions -- weddings, bdays, grandkid things, etc. All the relationship dynamics change. It's like polymath only you'd call it familymath. The concept is still the same. The network of relationships takes dings on many tiers. Not just the breaking up couple link.

You will grieve. Try to do the self care you need to do for yourself and maintain your separate parent relationships how you need to be.

Will keep you in thoughts and prayers.

hugs again,
GG
 
Thanks ever so much, GG. You're right about the grieving. It comes on the heels of some pretty staggering losses (two family members, a close friend, and months of really good writing!) but the more I feel like I'm falling, the more spider-silk shoots out to grab me and anchor me in midair. I'm becoming the center of a web again, one that isn't my blood but loves me just as much.

I miss my dad so much. Now that they've decided to separate and divorce at some point, he's acting as if all the paperwork's gone through, except that when he's gone, he's not at his own apartment or anything. He's out partying. I hope it gets old fast, because I don't recognise this version of him, and I've seen a lot of versions! This one is kinda sad. He's 61 but he seems to think he's 21 again. Nothing against people having fun, but... moderation. Have more than a night or two chilling at home (whatever you call home) per week.

Maybe it's inevitable. His dad was a philanderer and his mother apparently had a husband already. Maybe there's something about us that makes this more likely. Were we all wired for non-monogamy in that line, from Ray and Dorothy on down? What would have happened to me if I hadn't figured myself out? In a decade or three, would I become my own father?

...now I'm curious about the family histories of poly folks!
 
I am sorry that you are going through this. My sister is not speaking to me right now because my parents finally got married in July and my mom took my father's last name. Mom had been unhappily married to my sister's father when I brought my parents together for my son's birthday 8 years ago; she left my step father and divorced him shortly there after; and it was very good for everyone except my sister because they had been holding onto a dead marriage for her sake. My sister is 20, but had only just moved out when they got married because she had gotten pregnant her senior year of high school. I can empathise with her pain, I truly can. Yet she won't speak to me because I "took mom away" from her.
 
Oof! Oh, that is a tricky situation. At least nobody is actively taking Dad from us but Dad. I too feel for your sister (chaos and then this?!) but if there's one thing I'm learning, it's that people have to be happy or a marriage is worthless to everyone it touches. Mostly I miss Dad being around, which I hope he will work out of his system soon enough! They're both turning into their own people, who they might have been had the marriage been healthy. They can't erase what the last thirty-four years have been, but they can try to move forward.

And are your parents happier now? :)
 
The crazy thing about it, is that I'm the oldest. My grandmother forced my parents to stop seeing each other by my first birthday and arranged for my mom to marry her best friend's son instead of my dad. Their marriage was 31 years overdue. Even my step dad and his new girlfriend were for it. My mom had started emotionally distancing herself from my step dad and was thinking about divorce when I was 10 when she accidentally got pregnant with my sister on our family vacation. She decided to stay for my sister and brothers. I grew up w/o my dad with a step dad who was emotionally abusive and sometimes physically abusive, but my sister was too young to remember that. What she remembers is her dad spoiling her trying to buy her love and her getting to stay with mom while I went to college, got married, and started my own family.

And yes, both my parents and my step dad and his new girlfriend are much happier now. My sister unfriended my parents on facebook and her dad when he took my parent's side. But she still talks to them, relies on them to watch my niece when her and her boyfriend or my nieces biological father are working. She likes my dad, lived with him and my mom for 2 years before they decided to get married, but it was the name change that hurt her the most I think.
 
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