Couple-hunting in Unicornia

Thanks for posting this, BU, gonna steal some of it to explore thoughts on my own blog...
 
Steal away! I'll post more once I find the time to really articulate all the thoughts I've been having around his text.

In the meanwhile, a small revelation: my recent difficulties with the whole libido thing are not so much disinterest in sex per se, but rather specifically about me not getting it on. It's increasingly difficult for me to become aroused, and the situation is not helped by the fact that I get anxious if I feel I need to perform for the other person to feel good about the encounter and themselves.

I have zero difficulty with making others feel all sugar and spice and all things nice, but my erogenous zones tend to hibernate and shy away from touching. It's still possible for me to become aroused, but I need a reaction from my partner - it doesn't happen on my own, or when I'm the one being touched :(. And when I'm all dried up and worried about what to say and how to escape the situation, all touching is rather painful.

Luckily, I did manage to talk to Vanilla about this. She had been worried about an imbalance in the time we spend on each other sexually, with her getting the majority of attention and effort. I told her it's immensely liberating to be able to give her pleasure even when I'm not feeling that sexual on my own, and because the pressure is off, I often manage to get in the game myself, too, later in the process.

I'm not suffering the least bit but I do realize this problem-o-mine needs to be addressed if I am to build lasting sexual relationships. I hope the medication will eventually even out, and we managed some small progress with Vanilla already last night, with some non-goal oriented touching, and although it was a bit painful in the end, it didn't dampen the mood. I still feel there's a long way before I feel like even remotely ready to be sexual with anyone else, but progress is progress.
 
BU,

It's great that you're doing some non-goal oriented touching. :)

Have you looked into sensate focus? Basically, it's just that, non-goal oriented touching, and relaxing with your partner. If you get a chance to google it, I would, I think if nothing else it can be something you can do for each other that should hopefully add no performance anxiety. :)
 
New Year, new posting

So it's been awhile. At some point last year I just sort of dropped out of the forum - maybe I was becoming too engrossed with stuff here and it was emotional exhaustion with yet another story of hurt feelings and frustrations and people behaving badly. At least partly I felt there was nothing much to report, with me and Vanilla being sexually monogamous. Last night we stayed over at the place of Vanilla's former FWB, and we had sex, which was fun and sweet and refreshing. I hope he comes to visit us. I still don't have the energy to sex up anyone but Vanilla one-on-one, but in a group setting I can hang back more and wait for my turn without all the intensity I have a hard time building up with anyone else. She and I manage to get it on about every other day, which I find essential for our connection. It also works miracles against stress and crankiness! I feel our relationship rests on a really solid basis. I trust her. While our romantic relationship with Moonlight has ended, I still love and respect him as a friend and enjoy spending time with his children. And I miss Sweetheart terribly, it's been a month since I got to talk to him.
 
Hey, It's good to hear from you! Glad you're doing well. I know what you mean about the emotional exhaustion. It can be draining to read so many stories of people in pain. I have to limit myself to how much I can read of those. Otherwise, it just makes me sad. I feel like I mostly post on the Word Association Game, lol. :) Are you and Sweetheart still dating?

Since I decided that I was probably going mono, I, too, felt like there 'wasn't much to report.' But I know that I enjoy your posts, so I hope you still come and update sometimes. :)
 
Two plus one

Are you and Sweetheart still dating?

Not dating per se, since they are still basically monogamous with his wife. But we keep in touch intermittently and I do feel very refreshed and loved after talking to him, no matter how rarely that happens.

But I know that I enjoy your posts, so I hope you still come and update sometimes. :)

Likewise!

Just wanted to muse how after the threesome I felt very content and happy to be sleeping with two people in the same bed, cuddling them both. There is something I feel that's very natural and right in a three-people set up, which is something I sorely miss. I know it's not very functional to prize structures over relationships, but if an actual triad opportunity would ever present itself where I would know the participants beforehand and have established relationships with them, I would jump on it. In the meanwhile, I'm happy just to swing three-way, too.

On other news: I'm starting krav maga and salsa this year! I'm in crappy physical condition, so we'll see if I survive.
 
Waking up today I could see immediately that something was bothering Vanilla, and after a bit of probing I learned that she wasn't satisfied by our sex life. Turns out she prefers three-hour-fuck-your-brains-out-sessions twice a week to quickies every other day. I've tried to initiate sex every other day since my libido more than halved, and since she wasn't initiating, I thought we were good on that department. No such luck! However, now I know better. Communication! It works!

In the meanwhile, I'm worried that I am growing over-excited over the possibility of having a man in our lives again. Evidence in favour of me having to take some cold showers to curb my enthusiasm: 1) he lives far away 2) he is skeptical towards the whole poly thang, and doesn't want any of that in his life 3) I barely know him.

On the bright side of life, I just survived my first ever krav maga class!
 
Congrats on the krav maga class! I hope you get to have many more! :) what kind of stuff did you get to do?
 
Changing definitions

Basic stances, basic punches and basic kick. Plus we learned how to free ourselves from a wrist grap. I'm training with the fiance of a friend of mine, so it's a bit embarrassing, since I don't know him very well. AND I'm the only girl on the class. When we did push-ups I was like "Hmm, the instructor didn't specifically say we could do girlie push-ups, but he didn't exactly say we couldn't, so I'm gonna do them anyway". Turns out I have zero upper body strength :eek:.

It's funny to see how definitions travel over time. I just finished reading a book "Breaking the Barriers to Desire - New Approaches to Multiple Relationships". It was an edited article collection, with a glossary in the end, compiled with the help of alt.polyamory mailing list. The book was published in 1995, and it gives the definition of a triad as follows:

"Polyamorous relationship consisting of three people."

whereas triangle:

"triad where each person is involved with each of the others, with no large differences in the degree of these involvements"

and vee:

"Relationship between three people where one person is closer to the other two than they are to each other. For instance, the 'pivot' of the vee may be the primary, within this relationship, of the other two, and they may be each other's secondary partner. Contrast with triangle."
 
I have only now come to realize why it is so important that you have a good foundation for poly. I used to think that foundations were only for those people who had decided to open a previously monogamous relationship. I didn't have to worry about any of that jazz. Since breaking up with my ex-bf in 2010, all of my relationships have been open from the get-go. So there was none of that "going at the pace of the slowest person" and GASP, communication! needed, right?

Now that I think of it, I guess it has taken me and Vanilla some six months to really build the foundation we need. I just noticed my interest in polyamory and multiple relationships waning, having harder time giving myself to others when I felt I wanted to immerse myself in my relationship with Vanilla. Talking about a merger there. I named it my 'nesting phase'. Looking back, I would call it foundation-building time. We have a solid partnership for life, a home harbour which makes expeditions to the unknown conceivable. I don't feel threatened and obsess about what any one new person is thinking of me, how things might be going, what if I like them more than they like me etc. I can just be and enjoy the ride, because I have a homebase that I don't need to question, which will be there even if all of my other relationships from now on come to naught.

Having a primary with whom I feel we have a real partnership with, that I trust immensely, that I can be vulnerable and annoying and insecure with, has made me a better potential secondary for anyone falling my way.
 
That's great. You sound very grounded.

For me, I need to establish a strong foundation in my relationship with myself, because I don't want a partner or primary. Or, I am my own primary, if you look at it that way. Things have been emotionally up and down for me the past few months and I noticed that when I am shaky, I don't have the energy to nurture my friendships and casual relationships, much less any hot euphoric love muffins that might come my way. It's such a balancing act sometimes!
 
New favorite phrase! :D

Mine too!

Sadly, I think I might not be very good with being my own primary. I wonder if that somehow fuels my desire for poly. This whole exploration for me started with two serious life-threatening illness scares in my little family, when I realized I might lose the people I care about the most, and that I should fortify myself with as big a family as possible.

I've never lived alone or much cared for being alone. I try to cultivate non-codependence with Vanilla, but if she goes to see her family out-of-town, I go to be with my mum, instead of hanging out alone in an empty apt. Another couple we know have been together since they were 13, and they are unable to spend nights apart. That is something that seriously hampers their lives. If they can't be together, serious panic attacks occur. I don't want to end up like that :(.
 
So, after a long discussion, me and Vanilla have come to realize that we have more love to share. Ideally, we would like to bring a third into our relationships. We would all love each other equally, it would not be just about sex, but about sharing our whole lives together. We would live together and there would be no individual couples, but all interactions would be between the three of us, because that's just fair. Except of course Vanilla and I could still have sex just the two of us, but the third shouldn't feel the need to. And we would be rock-solid poly-fi of course, because really, our love should be enough for anyone.

No, really :D. We would like to make new friends, since our friends from the time before we met have pretty much all moved away. FWBs are especially welcome. Happy and satisfied as we are, we both still do like men. A shared male secondary would be awesome, or at least someone who could be a secondary to one of us and an FWB to the other or whatever. Or just someone who wouldn't be averse to the idea of hanging out together with us.

Our game plan is to seduce - scratch that, befriend - the eligible bachelour living upstairs.

On other news, I'm going out on a date! Whippee. He's a somewhat older and divorced eco-hippie vegan. Should be fun.
 
LOL!! You got me BU. I thought for a second has she lost her effing mind? Hee Hee!

Befriending *cough* seducing the bachelor above sounds like a fine plan to me.
 
I swear, I almost shuddered! Awesome juxtaposition of the wrong and the right way to go about this sort of thing. :) Good luck on the date!
 
Polyphobia

I'm not a big fan of calling aggression towards members of a group because they are members of that group phobia of any kind, but alternative words are hard to come by. None really describes the mix of judgementalism, scandalism and disgust many people exhibit when they hear that somebody has more than one partner and does it openly.

I volunteer for a youth project, and today while cleaning up and closing the place down for the night, another volunteer started talking about a man she knows, who is involved both with the mother of his child and another woman, whom he has known much longer. The three of them together with their child speak of themselves and act like a family. The following discussion centered around the exact nature of the women's involvement with each other and their motivations for staying in this relationship.

The group leader suggested that perhaps both women were too tangled up and needy to really let go of the man. I started thinking how people would perceive a possible third romantic interest in my life, who would live closeby unlike Sweetheart, and perhaps end up living near to us or with us. If it were a man, would they gossip about how what she really needed was a real man anyway? Or would they speak with mixed envy and judgementalism about the man who has two women at his beck and call, a real-life harem? Would they go around in circles arguing whether the guy was involved with both of us or just me? Would the reaction be any different if I started a relationship with another woman? I suspect so.

When the volunteer suggested that the women might be involved with each other as well, the leader shuddered and raised her voice in disgust; "You mean they ALL sleep together in the SAME bed and like?". The apprehension and condemnation was so clear in her voice that I cringed. I am really disappointed with myself for not speaking up. Would I have acted any differently if they didn't know about Vanilla and were discussing bi women like that? Is that how they would talk about me if they knew? Would it change their thoughts about me? Very likely so. For my own peace and comfort, I kept my mouth shut.

I've always been of the camp; "I live my life and act just normal and people can think what they want about me and my relationships, I don't care". Now I realized that I do care. I don't want people speculating what I am getting out of a poly situation, if I am being used and just scared of being alone. I don't want people to speculate like that about Vanilla. I want to be open about the people I love, sleep and live with, and go to the day care center and be like: "This is our child, SpongeBob SquarePants. This is my spouse, VanillaIce. This is my/our partner, RandomDudeWhoLivesWithUs. Please put into your notes that any one of us might show up to pick up Bob."

It would be so much easier to present RandomDude as our sperm donor, father figure to Bob or our family friend, not say anything and maybe pass him off as a relative, or perhaps even the new, post-break up partner of one of us and thus Bob's step dad. Not say anything and just let people assume. But now I realize I don't want to mind my own business. I don't want any possible future children feeling like they have to keep secrets for adults and not be honest about who sleeps in which bed in their home. I don't want them knowing that while their family is different, it should never be mentioned of to anyone but closest, dearest friends.

I know there are a lot of people who feel that being too in-your-face about poly is violating another person's privacy, but I feel that if I am going to be in your face lesbian and tell the day care center staff that I am married to Bob's biomum, then poly is not that different.
 
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