pondering poly

So, had a productive talk with H this afternoon. At least, I feel hopeful. We were talking about the idea of our marriage being poly, again. After some discussion, he was able to admit that he feels poly is wrong because society says it is wrong. Now that I can work with. I began giving him examples of things which used to be expected or accepted by society and no longer are. For example: Ladies used to be expected to wear dresses. Slavery was accepted, there were even laws on the books supporting it. Society changes when little people question these norms, and begin to refuse to follow them. It is a slow process, but it works.

I am seriously questioning the entire concept of monogamy. To say I love you and I will love you for the rest of my life, carries with it the expectation that you will be able to be everything and everyone to me for the rest of my life. Is this reasonable? Is it even possible for one person, no matter who they are, to be able to satisfy all of my needs? The more I examine this expectation, the more I am convinced it is ridiculous.

I have spent my life trying to live up to something. Trying to be good enough to gain someone's approval, whether that be my parents, schoolmates, society or Brad. I have never succeeded, which has left me feeling like a miserable failure. The problem with that is I don't really need approval. If I look deeper, what I really need is acceptance. You don't have to like what I am doing, just let me do it. You don't have to like who I am, just let me be. It has taken 40 years to come to this realization.

So, I am 40 now and I will not seek approval any longer. At least, I will attempt to live in a way that makes me fully happy, and seek acceptance of this from others. Having made this decision, I am seriously questioning whether the marriage can be saved. As I stated above, H has at least opened up to thinking about why poly is "wrong" in his eyes. But, that is a long way from being able to live such a life. And, I feel this is exactly what I need.

I have always been dissatisfied in my relationship with H. Don't get me wrong, I have loved him wholeheartedly from very early on. There are so many wonderful things about him. Just the sound of his voice still softens the world for me, makes things just a little bit more ok. He is an excellent father to our kids, when he is here anyway. He has not been so great since the separation. He is intelligent, funny, loyal, hardworking. He is a wonderful, considerate lover. (I sound like I am trying to sell him, don't I?) Most importantly, I simply cannot imagine waking up every morning for the rest of my life and him not being there.

However, there are also a lot of things he is not. He is not romantic, in fact I avoid any music or movies relating to romance because they leave me feeling the lack of it in my life. He is not flirtatious with me, which leaves me feeling undesirable. He is not passionate, which leaves me feeling incapable of inspiring passion in anyone. He is not dominant (sexually), which leaves me craving to be dominated. He is not confident, which leaves me longing for a "real man". Also, he is not a woman, which leaves me craving a woman's touch, smell, taste....all the things that a man can never provide.

Why should I have to choose between feeling fulfilled, or having the love of my life? Why is it not reasonable to say that I want him to be my husband, and I want to find others who can be these things he cannot be for me? I am not interested in having flings with an endless line of strangers. I am told that my ideal life would be polyfidelity. I want H to be my love, my home base, my partner in life, my best friend. And, I want one or maybe two men, and one very special woman, who I would see regularly would fill the rest of my needs.

In addition, I recognize that I can never be all that H desires. I want him to have the same freedom. I would love for him to find a woman or women who would be able to be what I can't be for him. I would love to see him find his confidence and be truly happy for the first time. I know that I have never made him happy, never fulfilled all of his needs. I know that I never will. I used to see this as my failure. Now, however, I see it as reality. I cannot be everything to him, I can only be me. So, he should deny himself ever having these other needs filled because he loves me? I just don't see it.

Of course I feel jealous when I think of thils. It is a normal human emotion. It does not, however, need to control me. I can feel jealous and still allow the part of me which is bigger than that to run the show. I think it is no different than allowing your children to grow up. As a mother, I feel fearful because my oldest is leaving for college soon. It is normal to feel this fear. Should I not let him go because I am afraid? Of course not! I deal with this emotion in a mature way, because I want him to live his life, to mature and grow, to be independent and successful, more than I want to hang onto him. His happiness is more important than my fear. Is this not similar to the way I feel about H?

So, the decision has been made in my heart. I only need to assert to H that I will live the rest of my life, or at least the immediate future, in a poly lifestyle. This means that with him, or without him, my future will involve more than one lover. He can either find a way to accept me under these conditions, or let me go.

the clinic

Ok, so I have now returned from my visit to the diagnostic clinic. It was a difficult few days, with the long drive and all. I am convinced, however, it will be worthwhile. My doctors there seemed to take great interest in solving the mystery that is me. So, while I still have no diagnosis, I do have some fantastic doctors putting their heads together on my behalf. This has to be enough, for now. I am happy to be back at home in my comfy chair now, and awaiting news from the clinic.

Also, making the trip a bit more interesting, (or difficult dependent on perspective), my H drove me there and back. This necessitated us sharing hotel rooms and spending many hours together. We had some productive talks, and some painful ones.

We did talk about his girlfriend. I told him I don't fully believe his story about having no feelings for her. He tells me it is just a physical thing with her. This is illogical to me in many ways, the most important one being that I know him very well. He does not operate that way, he always requires some level of emotional connection along with a sexual one. He admitted nothing, but at least I said what was on my mind. I really am not upset that he has feelings for her. I have feelings for other men as well. It simply bothers me that he can't be straight with me about it, even with the level of openness we have been striving towards.

In addition, we had a nice long talk about his suspicious nature regarding men. He is quite a contradiction in this area. He is supportive of me pursuing relationships on some level with other men. And yet, he suspects each and every one of being some type of predator, manipulating this poor defenseless woman to their will. This is both annoying and disappointing. It is probably clear to you why it is annoying. It is disappointing as I am trying to hold onto hope that he will open his mind to the possibility of polygamy. I certainly don't see that happening if he persists in seeing me as unable to judge a man's character before having a relationship with him. I feel somewhat disrespected by his suspicions, to be perfectly honest.

We spent a bit of time talking about my desire to meet P, although I felt it inappropriate to mention how deep this desire runs. H is pretty low right now, with financial troubles and all, and it seems a bit like kicking a man when he's down for me to elaborate on my desire to make love to another man. The right time will come, but it is not yet. I am impatient.

The big one, however, came about as a result of him whining about his financial troubles yet again. I recognize that he has gotten himself into a deep hole in this regard. I try to be supportive and helpful where I can, although he has paid very little in the way of child support and we are a sinking ship over here.

To be frank, though, I find it difficult to deal with these indulgences in self-pity because he did this to himself. I live a very frugal life, and that has not changed in his absence. He is the one who spent way too much on an extended stay suite after he left. He is the one who got his onetime fling pregnant(supposedly) and was bilked out of money for an abortion. He is the one who bought a car with exhorbitant payments. He is the one who spent $2500 on erectile disfunction treatment without clearing this with his insurance first. He is the one who has been robbing Peter to pay Paul in the payday loan game. He is the one with the top-of-the-line cellphone and a service plan with all the bells and whistles.

So, ok - he has to work more now to try to catch up. He feels he can't get ahead no matter what he does. He tells me I would be better off with him dead. What am I supposed to do with this?
So, rather than bite my tongue as I usually would, I told him basically that it makes me angry to hear him crying about how bad he has it when this mess was his creation. And, he didn't speak to me for hours afterward. It was very tough for me, but I maintained my calm and refused to apologize for stating my feelings. Eventually, he brought up the subject and said something to the effect of "I'm a man, I can take it". Yeah, that's real super helpful H.

I am growing, trying to be brave enough to be honest about my feelings, even if this gains his disapproval. I am quite proud of how I conducted myself over the last few days together.

two steps forward...

The upcoming visit to the diagnostic clinic is heavy on my mind. I am hopeful that some answers will come from it, although I try to never allow my hopes to get too high. That is a conditioned defense that I would like to overcome, but as yet that is still how I live my life. It would be nice to live in a world where you can expect good things to happen.

The pain is quite present today. Most days, if I find a comfortable position, and keep my mind busy, I can get beyond the pain. Today is not one of those days. It is a bad day to be down too, as I have much on my to-do list.

I am looking very much forward to the next few days. My husband and I are going to spend some time together, actually face to face. Recently, most of our communication has been over the phone or IM. Some things, however, are better discussed in person. Also, I just miss him terribly. I look forward to being close to him, hearing his laugh, seeing his smile. He has been so much a part of me, it is difficult waking up each day to his absence. He has been gone for more than 6 months now, and I am still not used to it.

During his absence, I have gone through so much emotional turmoil. I began dealing with it by keeping as busy as I could. Then the depression set in, in a very bad way. I stayed down in the abyss for quite some time. I began to pull myself out of it by accepting that he was gone, didn't want me, and it was time to move on. So, I began putting feelers out on internet dating sites. I really didn't believe I had anything to offer to anyone at that point. But, I did get responses.

I eventually started dating a bit, and made some huge mistakes on that front. As soon as someone wanted me, I took them in wholeheartedly. It was so wonderful to feel like I had value again. I did not choose wisely. I was just happy that someone saw something worth having in me.

I have come a long way in a short time from that attitude. As soon as H learned that I had someone new, he began pursuing me again. At first, I had no use for anything he had to say. Eventually, I agreed to sit down and hear him out. He came to me with more sincerity than I had ever experienced previously. He explained his actions leading up to and during our separation. It did not make it ok, but it did help in the healing process. Since then, he and I have been talking regularly, opening up about things we had never shared with each other before. It has been very good.

So, we are talking. On a whole new level. And yet, we are not back "together". I am still talking to a few men I have met online, who have become very dear to me. I am incredibly attracted to them, each in very different ways. I find it difficult to think about giving them up, or even keeping them just at a level of friendship. The more I open up and look deeply at my hidden desires, the more I believe that I want to live in a poly marriage. Husband and I have discussed this need, and he is thus far against it. I have not given up yet, giving him time to process as this really is new and huge.

I don't know what to do. I am faced with choices that I do not want to make. Having begun to read Schnarchs' "Passionate Marriage", I believe it will be helpful to me in the long run. His approach is based on making yourself better, not working on the marriage. The theory being, if you grow, your partner is forced into a choice of either growing or leaving the relationship. I think this makes complete sense, and I look forward to this process with both anticipation and anxiety. I will be forced to confront things within myself that I really would rather not. And, husband may choose to leave rather than face his own challenges. Time will tell.

the marriage

Well, here goes - my attempt to summarize the more than two decades that the two of us have been attempting to be happy together.

When we met, I was still in high school, but soon to be a dropout. I was in the midst of fullon teenage rebellion, with absolute zero self esteem. I was drinking, experimenting with drugs, sleeping around all over the place. I was just a big pile of mess at that point in my life.

In comes my knight in shining armour. He was only a couple of years older than me, in college at the time. I fell in love with him almost instantly. He saw more in me than a piece of ass. He wanted to know ME! I didn't care what anyone else thought, this was the man for me and I was head over heels.

Once we had established a relationship, he began to urge me towards making better choices. I stopped many of my unhealthy behaviors, thanks to his influence. So, that is the very positive side of our early years together.

The negative side, well, we had a lot of rocky times. We were both very young, with very little understanding of how to be in a relationship. He did things that hurt me, I did the same to him. We broke up and were drawn back together so many times. We learned from our mistakes, most of the time.

Eventually, after around 7 years and two kids, we finally were married. There was no proposal, no romance, just a decision made due to outside influences and a realization that we might as well. Certainly not the romantic dream we girls grow up hoping for, but I was happy. He was mine!

And, here we are 15 years later. There are now three teenage sons, who are amazing kids by the way. Husband and I are currently separated and realizing that we had lost the ability to communicate with each other in any meaningful way, which led to a sex life that was beyond hopeless.

We are talking now, opening up about things that we never have in the past. I am uncertain whether the marriage can be saved, or should be saved. For now, I am reading (currently "Passionate Marriage" by David Schnarch), getting to know myself better, and trying to be a more authentic version of myself. That is all I can do, I think. What he chooses to do is outside my control.

the disability

My current health issues began with a small area of pain for which no cause could be found. I pushed on, not one to be waylaid by a bit of pain. But, it continued to grow in intensity, then spread to new areas, until life in general became impossible.

I have been through so many doctors, extensive testing, many chemical attempts to relieve the pain, even hypnosis. I still am no closer to an answer or a fix, although the pain clinic has me at a manageable level on most days. I can at least now sit up in a chair, shower, drive short distances. This is major progress. And, on the horizon, I am scheduled for even more testing at a world renowned diagnostic clinic, so there is hope.

I spent months of my life unable to talk, eat solid food, or do pretty much anything that would have contributed to a meaningful life. Then, as the medication began to improve my abilities to function, the depression set in.

It is no wonder that my marriage has suffered. I want my life back. More accurately, I want a new improved version of my life. So, I am on a journey.

beginnings

Where to begin? I am not a blogger - this is my first attempt.

I am in a phase of many transitions in my life, and all of my thoughts and feelings need to go somewhere. I will attempt to post them in some manner that makes sense, but I make no guarantees.

The catalysts for all this change in my life are twofold:

1) I have been on disability for over a year now, and am getting no closer to regaining my life.

2) My marriage is broken, and I am trying to determine if it is fixable, or even worth fixing.

My inspiration for choosing a blog as my outlet is 2amsomewhere. After reading the postings he wrote while going through the demise of his marriage, the personal growth he acchieved along the way is evident. I only hope that some day I'll read back over my postings and see the same type of growth.

So, whether anyone reads my ramblings or not, I am here, I am endeavoring to evolve, and I am lambent.