the story of a secondary

Ive got to say Anna I have enjoyed reading your posts and am utterly envious of your writing style :)

Thank you! I minored in writing at college, it's something I love to do. :)
 
Have you told Eric that you love him as a friend?

Only in the sense of what I posted a page or so back about emailing him and saying that our friend K and I love the three of them (him, G and B) very much. Also, on the camping trip, they were planning to come meet me and I left a note addressed to the three of them on a dry erase board in the middle of my campsite explaining that I would be late and signed it "<3! -- Anna"

These are my only two attempts thus far, both very recent, at getting comfortable with him seeing the word love coming from me. Both were written rather than spoken. I'm incredibly gun-shy about this whole subject.

Sure, I could tell him I love him as a friend or I love the role he plays in my life (Gia's suggestion for wording when I first brought it up to her in the winter). But in truth I feel much more than that, so it would feel like a lie. I love to look at him when he's not looking. I smile without meaning to when I see him. He makes me feel warm and relaxed and nervous and protective and turned on, all at the same time.
 
I've mentioned that Eric is skittish about emotions, but I don't think I've explained why.

A couple years before they approached me about falling into bed together, Gia and Eric met a girl named Jen. They both liked her very much and she liked them. Eric was especially fascinated by her sexually -- she was a hardcore masochist. She became their girlfriend. She and Gia were genuinely in love, while Eric said he loved her but didn't really see her as more than a fun time and a friend.

Jen found herself in a bad financial position and they invited her to move in with them. Jen... had some issues. She was bipolar and often unmedicated. She blew up over crazy things and was very insecure. She and Eric would go out on dates and she would expect romance from him. When she didn't get it, she got even more freaked out, naturally. Gia got nervous about their relationship and asked them to put sex on hold. They said ok, but then she found out that Eric had been doing very sexual things with Jen, just stopping short of penetration. Jen had truly thought this was fine, but Eric knew it wasn't. He was basically cheating on Gia, or at least violating her wishes.

Their marriage came to a major crisis. Gia thought seriously about leaving him. Jen moved out. They started each seeing Jen separately, rather than together. Things were particularly tortured between Jen and Eric. She was desperate, in love, hurting, he was miserable with guilt and with the realization that he hadn't even loved her in the way he'd said. He felt responsible for her pain and had a very hard time dragging himself away from the drama... both the drama that he'd caused and the drama that Jen naturally projected. Finally, he managed to break it off.

Gia and Jen at first tried to keep things going with the two of them, but it was impossible. Jen eventually moved away from the area and stopped talking to Gia completely... despite everything, the loss of that love and friendship wounded Gia deeply.

That's my secondhand recollection of the whole thing anyway.

Gia and Eric stayed away from poly after that and just worked on their marriage. They got past it all, though scars remained. Eric, in particular... having almost lost the center of his world, his marriage... having made a terrible, ugly mess of a relationship with the woman who had been his girlfriend... having lost the respect of more than one of our mutual friends... seems to have done the most to try to learn from the whole thing. He's brutally honest with himself and about his limitations and foibles. He's humbler, more communicative, more empathetic.

I was the first woman they approached for anything extramarital post-Jen. Gia and I fell into a dating relationship fairly quickly, and I was surprised to realize that she wanted me to be just "her" girlfriend not "their" girlfriend. I didn't know then that they'd previously made every mistake in the unicorn hunter's handbook, I just knew that they're dated a girl together before and it hadn't worked out.

It was Eric's firm contention when I tried to feel him out about a possible emotional connection more than a year ago that he doesn't love easily, doesn't know how to be romantic, doesn't want or need an emotional relationship outside of Gia. He said once that it's better to be "a minor villain in the first act" by letting someone know he's not in it for love, than to be the major bad guy at the end of the story by leading someone on.

So, you can see why I've held off.
 
I often think that the relationship between the three of us is as healthy as it is because we've all already made and learned from so many of the mistakes there are to make.
 
I often think that the relationship between the three of us is as healthy as it is because we've all already made and learned from so many of the mistakes there are to make.

All of you seem to understand one another very well and "get" one another separately and together. I think that among other things is what makes it work so well for all of you.

I've always said that we should never regret mistakes we make as we learn valuable lessons that enable us to grow.

That's quite a sad history that Gia and Eric have had, but luckily you all found each other, right? :)
 
So, you can see why I've held off.

At this point, which is lesser of two evils; to tell Eric you love him and hear him say he doesn't return your feelings, or not to tell Eric and take the risk that he DOES return your feelings?
 
I am noticing recently how much I tell myself I need to say and hear the words "I love you." And even though it's very ingrained in me that this phrase is so important, I have been reminded several times that it's what we have that counts so much more than the words. I know for myself, if I can say it or hear the words back, I feel like I've "locked in" some kind of... something, and until that happens, I just have a hard time trusting what I've got with someone. But in reality, the words don't make your relationship more solid - you do. Your acts of lovingness and your openness to love are more important than any verbal affirmation of love.

As Catfish said to me recently, while pointing out to me that what I have with my current lover might not be the kind of love I envision, but "if he treats you well, makes efforts to make you feel good, cares about you, is willing to help... must be a duck." Meaning, must be love. So, as I stated in my blog, I have to remember that there are many shades and hues of love. Why do I have to get hung up on the words?

I think you're doing fine. I've told you this before, but I really don't think you have to focus or worry about the moment you tell him because I think it will just happen naturally if it does at all, and if it doesn't, know that he FEELS the love even if you don't say it.

And who knows -- he may surprise you and say it first!
 
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All of you seem to understand one another very well and "get" one another separately and together. I think that among other things is what makes it work so well for all of you.

I've always said that we should never regret mistakes we make as we learn valuable lessons that enable us to grow.

That's quite a sad history that Gia and Eric have had, but luckily you all found each other, right? :)

Absolutely yes on all counts!
 
At this point, which is lesser of two evils; to tell Eric you love him and hear him say he doesn't return your feelings, or not to tell Eric and take the risk that he DOES return your feelings?

Well the thing is, and I don't mean to just justify my cowardice here, I'm really considering this... what exactly is the risk if he returns my feelings but I don't say anything? In another situation I might worry that I'd lose him if I didn't tell him, but with my relationship with Gia going strong and Bee to give us all a common focus, it's not like he and I are going to drop out of touch any time soon.
 
Someone in another poly group I belong to posted this: http://www.psychologytoday.com/coll...elationships-1/taking-the-fear-out-i-love-you

It might be nice to frame it that way to him. And hopefully, that is what you mean and you don't need to hear it back from him, but just be free to tell him that's how you feel. That really is the most wonderful kind of love.

I really liked this, thank you. That's exactly how I feel... I truly don't need him to say it back. I just worry that he won't believe that, that he'll feel responsible for my feelings or pressured or whatever...
 
Your acts of lovingness and your openness to love are more important than any verbal affirmation of love.

No doubt, I've just gotta remember that.

Why do I have to get hung up on the words?

For me, I know it just kills me to feel like there's something below the surface that I can't talk about. I guess being a freak about communication helps with poly the rest of the time...

I think you're doing fine. I've told you this before, but I really don't think you have to focus or worry about the moment you tell him because I think it will just happen naturally if it does at all, and if it doesn't, know that he FEELS the love even if you don't say it.

I think I'm fine too, really, and I think you're more than likely right about all this.

And who knows -- he may surprise you and say it first!

God, I think I would cry in joy, if nothing else because I could finally stop wondering about this tell him or don't tell him question!

Thinking about it more (cuz hey, if you're gonna think about something why not way way overthink it, right? :p), I think my biggest fear is that he'll think "Oh crap, she didn't take me seriously enough when I let her down gently before, now I need to let her down hard so that she really gets it... I care about her, and it's been nice being relaxed with her, but I need to make sure she gets those mistaken romantic hopes about me out of her head before it ruins everything." And then he'll get cold and pull back and all those wonderful moments of warmth we share now will be gone. :( That and the what-if-it-affects-my-relationship-with-Gia thing.

Funnily enough, despite all the typing I just did... or hell, maybe because of it, maybe I just needed to let it out, or maybe some of the advice actually penetrated... I'm feeling more sanguine about things today. Overthinking this just makes it loom bigger and bigger in my mind, and aren't there other things I could be focusing on right now?

I dreamt last night about a guy friend I'd once had a big, unspoken crush on, but who I haven't seen in years. In the dream we were cuddling and it was getting sexual. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go farther. He tried to convince me, and I didn't like feeling pushed about it. Then I suddenly remembered Davis and said "Oh sorry man, I totally forgot, I can't be doing this anyway."

If I took one thing from the dream, it was the fact that dreaming about Eric now and then isn't such a big deal. My brain just can't let go of situations where there things were left temptingly unresolved, to the point of dredging up an ancient attraction that was never more than a crush! Plus, I must be pretty ok with my boundaries with Davis if I can follow them even in my dreams. :)
 
I feel like I've been addicted to this board, lately! At least the fact that I've been giving a lot of advice let's me feel like my karma is balancing out, since normally I just post here and let other people give *me* advice. :)

I sleep so much better when Davis is in the bed with me, but I try to spend some nights alone, because I want to maintain a certain degree of independence. I'm still not sure where this relationship is going and I don't want us to get too completely tangled in each other's lives too quickly.

One thing that I love about Davis is that he's as touchy-feely as I am. In bed, even when we're not being sexual, we just wrap around each other and nuzzle.

As much as I love Gia, she's not a cuddler, alas. When she's being intimate with someone that's one thing, but in her normal life she likes more space most of the time. Since we haven't been intimate in so long, that means that our instances of close physical contact are pretty limited. I ration out my touches, trying not to reach out so much that I make her feel like she wants to pull away. A caress on her shoulder there, a hand on her foot there. Like with a cat, I have to let her come to me if I want to pet her.

Last night, while I was over G&E's place, I had a drink and got a little sleepy. I told Gia I was going to go lay down on her bed for a bit. Eric was there, reading. I laid next to him quietly for a minute, then turned to him and said "Do you mind if I cuddle on you?" (he doesn't have the same need for space that Gia does but I didn't want to intrude). He thought about it for a moment, sort of furrowing his brow, then said "No," and, after another moment, lifted his arm to let me snuggle under. It felt really nice. He had to keep rearranging his book to read comfortably. I felt a little bad, but he didn't indicate that he wanted me to leave/move, so I just enjoyed it. After a while I got up and hung out with Gia more.

This Saturday I get to babysit Bee all on my own!!!! So far, only Gia's parents have done that. I feel so special. ^_^ I'm really excited to get to spend time with the little guy. And I'm also excited because I'll be helping to show them that it's totally possible for them to continue to have a life outside of the house and the baby, which has obvious benefits for me. They're going out dancing with some friends (I'm not a big dancer, so I don't feel bad being asked to be the sitter in this instance), which is something that Gia loves and has been absolutely dying to do for months.

I'm so, so, so eager for things to get back to something like "normal"! I know, I know, there's no "normal" when you have a kid, especially a new baby, things will just keep changing and changing and changing. But what I'm anticipating is the time when she and I can actually go *out* again, rather than me *always* going to their place to see her... now that the pregnancy is over she's finally back on her full dose of anti-anxiety meds so the idea of venturing out into the world is no longer so intimidating.

I don't expect out-in-the-world dates to be a super regular thing... it'll always be easier for her to stay in and continue looking after Bee, and I like Bee and Eric too, so that works... but I just want to do it *occasionally*, y'know?

And sex. God. I miss the sex. When she was pregnant it was much easier to put it out of my mind. Now that the baby is out into the world and she's healed up from the birth I know that everything isn't going to immediately snap back to normal, but, but, but, I've been waiting so long and I feel like it's so close, argh, wantwantwantwant. *sigh* We used to have the *most* amazing sex...

I think the moment I really knew I was starting to fall in love with her was early on, when we were having sex. Not to get too pornographic, but I was tied up and Eric was doing things to me, and she was cradling my head and looking down at me and her face was suffused with intent and interest and feeling and she just breathed "Beautiful..." while looking into my eyes. And it was like I suddenly saw her in a different way, she had been attractive before but it was suddenly like she was this perfect creature, like she was the most beautiful woman in the world, like an angel. I'm not crazy, I don't look at her and mentally block out her flaws, but things were different for me after that.
 
The moment I knew I was really falling for Eric was very different. It was at last year's big camping event, almost exactly a year ago now. We three had spent the week together in close quarters, talking, drinking, partying, lazing, fucking. I had been wondering for some time what my feelings towards Eric were, if they were real or just a sort of self-delusion, more like feeling like I wanted feelings than actually feeling them (if that makes sense).

One night I didn't sleep and watched the sunrise instead. A couple days later, when Gia and Eric were getting ready to leave the campgrounds, someone said something and Eric smiled this huge smile that lit up his face. He almost never smiles like that, he normally keeps a pretty stern expression and smiles more with his eyes. And this thought popped into my head -- "His smile is just like the sun when it breaks over the horizon, so surprising, lighting everything up."

And then I thought, "Oh shit. Am I thinking in poetry about this guy? Did I just, out of nowhere, compare his smile to the sun, isn't that something Shakespeare said in a sonnet or something??? Shit, shit, this is probably for real..."
 
With Davis, yet again, it was completely different. We had fallen in love long ago, when we were teenagers, but that's another story entirely, another life really. That relationship is long gone and we had become, firmly, just friends with occasional benefits.

And then more regular benefits. And he would sometimes say to me, spontaneously, even though he hadn't said it in a while, "I love you." And I let him say it because it didn't bother me and he didn't press me to say it back, so it was like a small gift I was giving him, letting him say this thing even though I didn't return the sentiment.

And then, a year and... seven, eight, nine months ago, something like that... he said "I love you" and the thought popped into my head unbidden, "I love you too." I wanted to say it back. I didn't know where the urge had come from, so I ignored it. But it came back. And not just as a reply to his words. I started to want to say it just when we were close, when we were together. I refused to say it, because we would just end up breaking each other's hearts again, it was a road I didn't want to go down. I told myself that mutual I-love-you's meant we would sooner or later end up in a relationship again (and I was right, here we are), and that wasn't what I wanted at the time.

Finally it got to the point that I was thinking about it when I was on my own, it was hurting me not to say it back to him, to hold onto it. The way it troubles me not to tell Eric how I feel about him now, but moreso. So finally I just said it in reply to him one day when he said "I love you" to me, I said "I love you too," and he was surprised but not too surprised, and very happy. And I was happy too. :)
 
I am just gushing over your writing. You do it so well. I love reading your blog. And I'm so envious of what you have, even including the longing, the doubts, the questioning. I don't even think you can really call yourself a secondary anymore. At least it doesn't seem as though you're treated like one. To have so much love in your life, mmmm... makes me hopeful.
 
I am just gushing over your writing. You do it so well. I love reading your blog. And I'm so envious of what you have, even including the longing, the doubts, the questioning. I don't even think you can really call yourself a secondary anymore. At least it doesn't seem as though you're treated like one. To have so much love in your life, mmmm... makes me hopeful.

Thank you! That's always good to hear. I find that writing really really helps me, it forces me to think things through, make connections, not ignore problems, recognize the good things, etc. Like how I started out a few posts up just sharing random thoughts/desires about Gia, which then turned into how I fell in love with her, then I wanted to tell the same story for each of my partners.

Doing that for Davis was actually especially helpful. My main concern with Davis is that what we have is usually more about comfort and ease together than about fire, which makes it seem less exciting and sometimes makes me wonder if it's less "real". I've heard the sort of dynamic I have with him referred to as "Old Relationship Energy" -- very valuable and beautiful in its way, very stable, but far less crazy and obsessive and shiny than NRE, and therefore easy to overlook.

Writing out that story reminded me that our history *is* romantic, even if we have our comfortable groove and he gives me less to chew over and ponder. He came over last night, after I had posted, and I found myself kissing with him in a more engaged, slow and exploratory way than we had been doing, very pleasant. :)

I've thought about the name of the blog and the secondary versus primary thing. Those distinctions are meant to refer to degrees of entanglement, not degrees of love or respect. So, Gia and I are definitely secondaries to each other... it's hard to imagine us ever moving in together or blending finances or co-parenting. But she considers me when she makes decisions, and she's told her parents and now even some co-workers about me, so I do think I get more from her in some ways than many other secondaries seem to get from married partners.

As for Davis, well, we don't have all that life entanglement stuff going on yet, but it's our intention to head that direction if things keep going strong, so I guess he's... a primary to be? We're engaged to be primary? Then again, if one of us got an amazing once in a lifetime dream job in Australia tomorrow the other would probably go with, (as hard and wrenching as that would be), so maybe the intention is enouh and we're already primary. Not sure.

Either way, since the blog is still mostly about Gia/Eric/Bee, I'm comfortable keeping the name for now. I hope that maybe other people in secondary relationships will see it and think "I could have that too, I don't need to be unvalued just because I'm not this person's primary partner.

Because, yeah, I kvetch here. I have friends I can talk to, but this is the only place where I feel like I can let out ALL of my worries without censoring at all. It's a big help to me. But overall, I know how lucky I am and I am so blessed... and I'm not religious, so I don't use that word much... to have the loves and the relationships I have.

Reading the New to Polyamory section really throws that into relief, too! It gets tough, hearing how so many people are struggling. That isn't a carefree lifestyle, that's for sure.
 
I think the moment I really knew I was starting to fall in love with her was early on, when we were having sex. Not to get too pornographic, but I was tied up and Eric was doing things to me, and she was cradling my head and looking down at me and her face was suffused with intent and interest and feeling and she just breathed "Beautiful..." while looking into my eyes.

Why do I get the feeling I was just cheated out of some really good porn here :D?

I also tend to fall for people during sex. There is something in the sense of intimacy and sharing that just opens my heart. I don't think I'm kidding myself if I say I have in the moment loved every one of the people I've bedded. Which is why I don't really know how to do casual :(. For me there has to be at least the potential of a relationship, otherwise I'm not interested.

A-hi-jacking I go.
 
Why do I get the feeling I was just cheated out of some really good porn here :D?

This way you get to fill in the details yourself. :D

I also tend to fall for people during sex.

I wouldn't say I do, I've had purely casual sexual friendships before that stayed just that. But if I AM developing feelings for someone, sex with them makes it impossible for me to ignore that fact.

A-hi-jacking I go.

Go for it! More comments means more opportunity for good conversation. :)
 
I had another very striking dream last night.

Some background first -- Jay is Davis's best dude-friend and also a long-time friend of mine, though I've never been close to him. I think Jay is hot and sweet and have told Davis this. I would never tell Jay that, though, because I wouldn't want to make things weird. It's a shame, really, because I think it might be a nice thing for him to hear... he has low self-esteem and is so antsy about people getting close that I was just saying to Davis the other day that I would feel like I was intruding if I even tried to hug the poor guy.

Thea is an old, good friend of mine who I once had a crush on and once had a drunken makeout with but, alas, never anything more. She told me that if she had "an ounce of lesbian" in her she'd be on me "in a heartbeat," which always stuck with me.

In the dream, I was with a big group of friends and everyone was being weirdly sexual towards me in a way that felt unwelcome and creepy. I felt like maybe they thought that because I was poly it was all cool. There was a flirty vibe going on between me, Jay and Thea, and that was the one part of it all that I was ok with, that felt respectful.

Finally I had to leave the room because I was feeling too upset. Jay came out after me and gave me a look that said he understood and we hugged. When we pulled back he looked at me appraisingly and said "Is there something we should be talking about?" I knew he was referring to the flirting happening between me and him and Thea.

I said "There are several excellent reasons why nothing's gonna happen, but... yeah, we can definitely talk." Then I woke up.

Soooooo... between this and the other dream about an old crush, am I coming to terms with my boundaries with Davis and saying goodbye to the possibility of anything happening with all the folks who are still lingering in my mental "yum" file? Is this more about the fact that I never communicated things and never resolved things with these people, and the stress of leaving things hanging in terms of my feelings for Eric is coming out this way? Both, neither?

Frikkin dreams.
 
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