Have you ever felt like you were existing in two parallel universes, both branched out from a decision that simultaneously destroyed you and brought you home?
No?
Yeah, I guess that such a question might be better understood with some level of context.
Several weeks ago, I made a decision. The very same decision lost me a person I love very much, and gained me a relationship with someone I have had immense respect for for many years. And in my mind, I’m existing in parallel universes where my heart is both shattered and swelling with potential, where some temporal flux–perhaps the kind of thing that a Star Trek episode might be based upon–is holding some tension where either it will dissolve into constituent atoms or grow three sizes.
I think it’s both.
True growth, the kind that sticks and matters, comes through pain and loss. And where, in the traditional/monogamous world, this usually happens in series, when one orients themselves towards a nonmonogamous lifestyle, occasionally you find yourself mending a broken heart while simultaneiously falling in love.
The wisdom of giving yourself space to mourn is still present and true, but you have to do it along with the other things. You need to allow yourself to reflect and miss the lost person while making plans and talking with the person you are building a relationship with, and it’s exhausting.
The pain
I miss her, so much. There has not been a day on the last 5 or 6 weeks when I haven’t thought about her. I truly, genuinely, loved her and wanted to build a life with her. Spending time with her was magic, and I wanted it so much.
But she was not adjusting well to sharing. Also, I fucked up. My reasons for doing so were understandable and human, but it was still a fuck up that I could have avoided. In addition to all of that, I’m not sure that the result wouldn’t have come about anyway.
When I met her, there was a moment when I said to myself, genuinely, that I could possibly give up nonmonogamy for. In retrospect, it’s quite obvious that this was just extreme NRE (new relationship energy, for you n00bs), talking, and I knew, even then, that this feeling wouldn’t last, but the feeling was real in the moment .
This is something that people new to this lifestyle need to understand; feelings will fuck with your head. You need to know yourself, like really well. Because relationships (especially ones where communication is key) will expose all the shit you aren’t dealing with. And a certain amount of life-experience is required to have this.
And, I hate to say it but…being married to the same person for 10 years or so then opening up is a receipe for disaster because the confines of that type of relationship dynamic is crippling for real adult growth. This is only one dynamic of why “unicorn hunters” are missing why they are so reviled; they are stunted by a type of relationship worldview which has dominated their relationship, and can’t see something crucial.
Traditional relationships are also bubbles we live in, isolated from reality.
And this is the world from which she came, and I should know, at this point in my life, that expecting a n00b, no matter how lovely and wonderful, to adjust to the worrldview shattering world of mature nonmonogamy is expecting too much.
And so the pain is mine, two-fold; the pain of the loss of someone I still love, and the pain of knowing that I chose to put myself in that situation again.
The gain
Shara is amazing. You, dear reader, may know her by a different name if you are a part of the poly community at all.
I feel like I have been playing a game on hard mode all these years, and I now have a gaming partner who has been mastering the controls as long as I have, and now we can roam the wastelands of the world together understanding the terrain and the mechanics in a way that is a relief.
Yes, there is still work. Yes, we still have to figure out the distances between our expectations, boundaries, and fears. But we have a common language, and there’s no fear, this time, of whether she’s going to try to steal me away towards that fictitious happy ending of two people choosing each other, happily ever after.
Because there is the sexual chemistry, which happens with someone regardless of whether they want to own you or not, but then there is the mental chemistry. A polyamorous, atheist, intelligent, sexy, and absolutely lovely human who also loves me.
What else could this poly skeptic ask for?
And so I miss her. She who I will not name out of respect for her privacy. But I love Shara, and am very lucky to have that requited.
Skepticism, Properly Applied 