Goodbye revisited

     You remember a few posts ago, I talked about the goodbye game. I always say, that someday the pain will be too great not to act on it.

     We had family meeting this week about me spending more time with Prof. Mad Science, Prof and I Face-Timed and determined that one week a month I would spend away. We talked about what each person needed in the situation. We found creative ways to meet those needs and now it is set. Simple as that. Mad Science and Prof were very supportive of the idea. They refer to each other as co-husbands anyway and now we are talking joint custody. I feel like a timeshare. Only kidding, I am happy to do this and have been looking forward to it for some time. This looks like a fun experiment. I'll keep you posted.

Fantastic it's Freakin Friday

Well, around here Friday means game day. We get together with our geek friends and play table top Pathfinder, go Paizo. This week our journey continues on the path to the Temple of Elemental Evil adapted for PF.

believe it or not a divider screen made of paper and ribbon

In other news I promised that my next post was going to be more of my office remix. So here are a couple of pics. This one is my divider screen. I looked everywhere for one I liked and couldn't find anything as sassy as the rest of the room. So scrapbook paper and drawing tools in hand I went with the same abstract flower shape I had used for the chargers. punched some holes and tied in ribbon. They are hung from the ceiling by cup hooks and large colored paperclips. It doesn't get any simpler. Next time I redo this room I may do it in red white and black and use the same concept for some layered geometric shapes.

This is the painting on the wall where my sewing table lives. same shape and a little creative vine work and viola. 

The desk Mad Science built and a chair we found at an antique mall for a song painted up pretty. In this picture you can't tell but the horizontal pink edging on the desk is ribbon.

This is the shelf above my desk. The koi is needle art by Mad Science's awesome mom. The whole room cost less than $100 to redecorate. Back to poly life next post. Have a great weekend everybody.

From two to three: advice on opening up from an HBB

From two to three: advice on opening up from an HBB

An interesting Article from Minx about do's and don'ts when adding a partner to partnered non-monogamy.

More poly info for the curious

It occurs to me that I have only really talked about my experience as a person living the life poly-amourous. I thought you might like more links to the vast geometry possible and some of the solutions to challenges other polyfolk face that we do not.

What like two girlfriends was one of the first poly sites I ran into when trying to explain what I was feeling to Prof.
http://www.xeromag.com/fvpoly.html 

The polyamory society is a great site and it has a special button for what to do if a friend or family member chooses polyamory.
http://www.polyamorysociety.org/

Loving more is one of the pioneering sites run by people who began the long journey to awareness and connection with like minded folk. Crammed full of resources and news and events in the poly community.
http://www.lovemore.com/

There are many many more and podcasts besides. We're everywhere!

I can't leave out poly weekly. Minx does a great podcast about responsible sexuality and stuff. http://polyweekly.com/

Achieving Normality

It's Monday. Prof left for his home today and I was not looking forward to the goodbye. It's often like this, I don't want to leave our pink bubble space. Prof doesn't want to leave but has to get back for work. We have the conversation about being more careful about bubble time and try more for normal behavior. We talk about being with each other more frequently. We talk about living together or at least in the same town. I point out that our arrangement has worked for him for nine years and that I can see why changing would be hard for him. He says he feels like a selfish bastard for not wanting to leave his comfort zone. It's always the same. This time was less rational on my part and I suggested that if he couldn't take watching me cry maybe we should break up. Of course, he says that he won't give me up. We play the goodbye game.

I watch funny videos and do stuff around the house for a few hours and it usually gets better. By the time he is home I feel better. It seems normal to look at him on my computer monitor, it is comforting. I miss him but it hurts less.

I got to give props to Mad Science. Knowing Prof was coming he arranged for much of Saturday to be elsewhere. And was very supportive this evening with the aftermath of bubble time. We talked and had dinner and intend to have some bubble time of our own. Tomorrow, it's back to laundry and groceries and normal life again but the transition day is always hard. Long distance relationships are never easy. I often curse myself for falling in love with someone so far away. But at least he is in-state which is better than Canada. ;)

This video made me laugh today, it might also amuse you.

Jealousy and Process pt 1

Jealousy is an issue sometimes. I had a twinge this weekend.

Prof and I had been having "quiet time". I noticed he was distant, scattered. When we talked about it he admitted that he had the "new girl" on his mind. He had been wondering what it would be like with her. Naturally my first reaction was fear, and a few quiet tears. I tried very hard to hide this from him but did have to fess up.

It wasn't that I was ashamed of my feelings, on the contrary, I tend to be good about honoring them. I hid them because I didn't want to change his process of coping with his feelings in favor of mine. Honestly, thinking about her while he is with me doesn't surprise or alarm me. I know there is longing, tension and doubt between them. The unknown weighs heavily on the new. I get it. 

I went through the same process myself. It was a matter of gently bringing myself back to focus on the person I was with and trying not to shame myself too much. Comparison is natural, not fair, not always comfortable, but coming from a duality system completely understandable.

I assured him that his thoughts and feelings are normal and part of the process. He was angry with himself for hurting my feelings. I reminded him that my feelings are my responsibility. I told him that I wouldn't ask for sex and relied on him to tell me when he was ready, I wanted to show willing and honor his processing space. I thanked him for his willingness to trust me with his feelings. I also realized that in talking to him it was really just an initial response and not my honest position on the matter. We are poly and I want him to experience all that means, as long as he is safe, sane and consensual about it. It was just a tiny knee jerk reaction. I have to admit to being a bit spoiled, since I've had him to myself for a number of years now. I am not now, feeling fearful of losing him, it has been a possibility all along. 

I also have to let him get where he is going on this without trying to direct it for my benefit. But I am happy I faced my fear and he was able to see something of himself and share it with me. All in all a good weekend. Honesty, clear growth, and great connection what more can you hope for?

Have we outgrown marriage?

I know, I said I wouldn't post again till Monday, but I was reading an article in Shine, this morning. Here is the link.

So the thing is she asks is marriage obsolete. Her selling point being, that it was tantamount to prostitution, it was a woman's retirement plan when she had no other way to make her living. Since we have other ways to make a living it should no longer be necessary as an institution.

As strange as this may sound from a non traditionalist, I am for marriage in general. Why? Money. We have, heterosexuals anyway, 1100 to 1400 civilly recognized rights as married people. The majority of which are financial in nature. For example: Tax benefits, the ability to file a joint return, social security benefits and freedom from paying taxes on estate taxes and gift taxes on property left to you by your spouse. Military benefits of the spouse, insurance coverage from your spouses work, family rates for insurance, tuition discounts, incentives offered only to married couples.

There are other things non monetary that we gain as well. Receiving joint custody in a divorce. Living in neighborhoods zoned for "families only". The ability to be in ICU in restricted hours if your spouse is in the hospital. Foster care and adoption rights. The ability to make the burial arrangements, bereavement leave. And tons of other things at the federal and state level. Things married people seem to take for granted.

Not too long ago my brother was in the hospital and his girlfriend of many years had to call me (next of kin) to make any legal decisions should it come to that.

So to say that marriage as a civil contract with legally recognized benefits is obsolete is maybe stretching things a bit. Civil unions, domestic partnerships and same sex marriages don't have near so many of these important rights which we take for granted.

Not to mention that if there weren't some real desirable benefits to being legally married according to the law why would our LGBT population be fighting so hard for them.

But marriage is still a much more complicated issue than money and who gets to see the kids. We also believe that love is essential to marriage not just in it's philosophical sense either. Men often marry for the comforts that arrangement provides. Let's face it there are many things a working man no longer feels he has to do that he did while single. Dinner, laundry, picking up. This is not to say that all men feel this way but it is still considered high on the list of desirable perks. Regular sex with a partner you can safely assume is faithful. Not always the case but there still lingers the ownership of body rights about monogamous marriage. As a married person I might feel that as I have papers on someone, I have first right to their time and attention, and everyone must stand in line behind me. I know that sounds blunt, but I know a lot of men and women that feel this way, sometimes to the exclusion of family, kids, friends, hobbies and personal time.
So is marriage dead? I think not. Does it need to evolve with the times, I say yes. What do you think about marriage?

Family Holiday

I'm so excited about Family Holiday this weekend. Mad Science and I have been pagan since before we started dating and though I don't practice Wicca myself anymore we still celebrate the eight solar holidays. This weekend is the Autumnal Equinox. The time of year when the FOC (that's family of choice) gathers for inventory, gratitude and supper. It's usually pretty low key and I don't expect it to be otherwise, this year, everybody seems pretty happy. 

There are some new people in the mix this year. Prof is waiting patiently for a love interest to decide what she will do. Mad Science has his eye on someone but no news about her status and me I am happy enough with two. 

I am interested in hearing from the boys this year on where they are and what they are grateful for. My challenge is to try not to prepare myself in advance or think myself into drama before anything happens. As I said I am pretty confident that it will be fine and we will have an awesome weekend together. I haven't seen Prof in two weeks and can barely stand waiting till midday tomorrow to see him. 

I may not post till Monday afternoon. Enough for now.

Fall Cleaning and Our Family Inventory

Being a reasonably neat person, twice a year, I have what we call agonizing reappraisal. Where everything in the house is cleaned and inventoried and we let go of things we no longer use, need, want or enjoy. I've been doing that this week in the house but I also have to do it in my internal life.

It's a chance for me to really look at what I value and why. Some folks go their whole lives without ever asking themselves why they believe a thing.

An election year has turned out to be a good time for this. I have watched my feelings rise and fall in favor of and against many of our country's most polarizing issues. Marriage equality, personhood, women's rights, taxes, education, the actual role of government, what family means to me, and I found myself delighted and surprised in many ways by what motivates what I hold dear.

I find, that it is often because it is a reaction to being a marginalized person for whatever reason. I feel sometimes injustice has been handed down to me and because of that, wish to stand up for others. Honestly, I believe everyone has a right to their opinions and will take the action they take, based on their beliefs. I see some people though, in the popular status (known as traditionalists), who get all the mainstream goodies and don't want to share them. I think this comes less from the actual rightness but more from fear that there is only so much to go around and that somehow we have to protect elite status to keep what we have. Fear that says I am in no way equal to the human being next to me who lives a different sort of life than I do. Whether that person is unemployed with kids to feed, or LGBT, or non traditional religiously. When people cease to be human you may then justify any behavior that goes against human nobility and decency.

I feel that if we were more ready, in our society, to honestly thaw out our own frozen ideas and really look at them, we would be less inclined to point the finger at our fellow man quite so much. In the family I have chosen this is critical to getting along. The only person I can truly know is myself and the only person I can safely change is myself. The more I accept that the better wife, mother, and citizen I am. What do you think?

Who we are and what's what with poly, for us.

How bout a little history. We are a MFM poly triad. If you aren't familiar with polyamory or you only know that it's people having sex with more than one person then you are in for a surprise. Poly is about choices about experience and experiment. Frankly, our relationship is pretty vanilla all things considered. I've been with Mad Science for 15 years and the Prof for 9. At the moment we don't all live together but hope to in the future. I guess I should cover the bases. These are some of the questions I have had to answer about being polyamorous:

Does your husband know you are sleeping around? Yes, they know about each other and are friends. Mad Science is ecstatic that I have another person in my life who helps me experience happiness. The Prof feels privileged to share the experience. I am crazy happy and only want them to be happy too.

Do you all have sex together?
No, we don't have group sex. The boys are heterosexual and therefore sex is one on one. Me, and one of them.

Don't they get jealous?
Yes, sometimes jealous feelings come up but we do our best to take responsibility for our own feelings and deal with them honestly.

Why poly, isn't one man enough for you? The short answer is no. No one person can meet all of another person's needs. To expect it only leads to disappointment. Once I believed in the knight in shinning armor, happily ever after thing but it didn't work out so well. I was monogamous and the man du jour wasn't. So as an experiment I decided to go with polyamory and see if it was a good fit for me. So far, so good. It relieves me of the constant fear that I am not pretty enough, young enough, thin enough, etc. I am good enough to be loved no matter who loves me. I don't have one friend, or one role model or whatever no one thinks anything is at all weird about it unless you are having sex with more than one person.

Are they able to have sex with other people? Yes. As long as they follow the practical criteria of the relationship. Is this person safe, are they sane, and is this situation consensual.

It's safe when a person is adult enough to get where we are coming from and is willing to honor that. For example using a condom protects all of us.

It's sane if the person isn't compromised in some way for example in rebound recovering from another relationship or trying to leave one.

It's consensual when we are honest and transparent about what is going on. I wouldn't sleep with a married man if his wife didn't know we were talking about sleeping together and was ok with it. Or with someone who wasn't able to make a clear decision like when drunk.

Why write about being poly at all? Because I want people to know that poly is normal everyday life. An option. You still have to work and cook and clean and raise kids and pay bills we just have three of us to do that now instead of two.

Do you think that you are born poly? yes, I think that I was born with a proclivity towards it. I've always had an entourage even if I didn't sleep with them. Each person brings something different to the relationship. It makes the business of our lives run smoother when we play to our strengths, compliment each others weaknesses and cooperate rather than compete.

Is everyone basically poly? I don't know, I think some are and would benefit if they were honest enough to go with it since they have a tough time being monogamous. I think some people are too insecure or don't have the necessary communication skills to do it successfully. And some people are just plain monogamous and are happy to be that way, I say, more power to them.

How can you love more than one person like you love your husband or wife? Easy. I don't love one kid more than the other. You would be surprised how much love there is to share when you stop thinking of it as a finite commodity that you purchase with your body rights. The men in my life don't own me, I don't own them. Our relationships aren't transactional.

Certainly sometimes we make little deals with each other like if you take out the trash for me I will fold your laundry. But not at the level monogamy created for me. Then my husband at the time felt he had a right to tell me what to do with my time, having sex with him was my duty as a wife and my fidelity was required even though none of those rules applied to him. That is not to say there aren't egalitarian monogamous relationships where both sides respect the personhood and choices of the other but I hadn't found it until Mad Science came along.

Aren't you worried about your kids? No. Firstly, they are grown now. Secondly, they are aware of the situation and could care less. I don't live to please them just as they don't live to please me. That isn't being smug it's just the facts. I know what my kid's habits are in the romance department and I don't have a right to tell them they can't do it that way. As long as they are happy and they aren't harming anyone I don't worry about it and they give me the same freedom.

I think that should hold you till I post again. If you have questions post comments.
Till next time. gomugirl