Changes in dynamic

About a month ago C and I met for a while and had a long talk.   Part of what we talked about was how Masters and slaves should behave after a breakup.  Should we just go our separate ways, and ignore each other if we happen to run in to each other, or should we recognize the relationship we once had?  I realized that one of the major losses I felt from all of this was feeling like she no longer had any respect for me, she had ignored me if we ran in to each other.  It didn’t seem to me that she cared at all about our past.  One of the ways that that has manifested is in her cavalier handling of mutual finances since our split.  I think some of the lack of recognition and respect issues on her part were out of fear, she didn’t know how I would react, so I let her know that I react much worse to being ignored.  And that while at the time, I may not seem appreciative, I will remember being ignored negatively, and being greeted positively.  And now I’m rambling a bit and probably not making sense.  Maybe one of these days I’ll learn to be a concise writer.

Another thing that I mentioned to her was that I know she still has a desire to bottom sometimes, and that I would be open to playing with her.  Not a guarantee, just letting her know it was ok to bring it up with me.  I suggested that we try to start meeting for dinner once a month, just to become refamiliar with each other, no expectations, no discussion of kids, finances, or any of that, just to work on being friends.  Well, that month I gave her a week that I was available, and never heard back from her, so I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal to her.  This month I didn’t even bother, so maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal to me either.  I still think it’s something we should do though, raising kids is much easier if we are friends.

Since then, I’ve started to realize that playing with her probably isn’t a possibility.  The dynamic that I fed off of, what I got out of it, the sense of control, isn’t there.  I would essentially be serving her, helping her get a need met that she can’t from her new partner.  That isn’t me.  The more I thought about the possibility of playing, the more I realized that at least right now, it would only leave me angry and empty.  Our dynamic has changed so much, and there would have to be so much negotiation involved, that it would never work for me, and I’m not sure that it would work for her either.

I know that she did have a scene with one of our friends recently, it wasn’t much, but I know that it left her crying because it didn’t feel right to her.  Not sure where that leaves us, with no situation that feels right.  Tough place to be.

So enough about the past.  I hope to start writing more, I’ve had a lot that I wanted to write about lately, so hopefully I can find the time in my schedule to start getting it out.

2 am

Here I sit at 2 am in a quite house, while the woman I thought would be with me forever lies in someone elses bed, never to return.   Is this what is left for me now?   I was at a party tonight and I didn’t want to come home, because I knew the only thing I would be thinking about was her.  I miss her terribly, and yet, at the same time, I hate her, and don’t want anything to do with her.  How can that be?  And more importantly how do I deal with it without it tearing me apart?  I’ve gone on a few dates lately, but I never make it past the first date, which is somewhat unusual for me.   They can tell there is something wrong with me.    I really don’t know what to do.  I’ve conteplated suicide probably 4-5 times a week.   I don’t think that I would do it, because every time I get close, I picture the little guy.   I guess I just get to be a shell, filling my time up when I can, drinking myself to sleep when I can’t.    Even fun things make me sad, because I’m thinking “she should be here”   We are about a week away from the event that kicked off the worst year of my life.   The Dragonboat festival used to be one of my favorite events, now it will be a reminder of the day I learned she was sharing more of her life with others than with me.  The yearly camping trip, the day she had sex with jessie without a condom.   Nothing is fun.  I try to find something to look forward to and I can’t.  I feel so bad for Bridget, she shouldn’t have to deal with this.

Civil

How the hell can she expect me to be civil?

She took away everything I had.  I thought I could depend on her.  I couldn’t.   I put 10 years of my life in to this family, she threw it away.

“these kind of things make it difficult to have conversations with you, or even want to”

Good.  I don’t want to have conversations with you.  I don’t give a fuck if you want to talk to me or not.      You latched on to me when your live was turned upside down.    Any port in a storm I guess.

For the rest of my life, any time I think of you with someone else, it will hurt.  You will always have a part of me.   But to think you’re so fucking special that I want to build something with you?  Get over yourself.  You cheated on me, emotionally and physically.   In (almost) 10 years of dating other people, I never once considered leaving you.  Your first serious relationship, your gone.

You talk a lot about happiness, the only person happy now, is you.  The kids aren’t, Bridget definitely isn’t, and I sure as hell am not.   I’m not sure that Jessie is either.   You claim your not poly, yet your with someone that is more poly than I am.  How is that fair to anyone.

I realized the other day that you did the same thing to me that you did to your first ex.  You decided it was over then acted on it, but the other party wasn’t really informed.    I know the level of respect you had for him, so I can only assume that is where I fall now.

I always thought it was pretty damn impressive what I did with the kids.   You apparently think it’s pretty common place.  And then expected me to just walk away when you decided it was over?   Tough, I’m here to stay.  Yes it’s true that I didn’t want kids that early, and that I waited 7 years to have the little guy because I wanted to make sure we were going to stay together.  But they are here, and I’m here, and I do understand what responsibility and commitment are.   I’m always going to be as involved as I can.  By the same token, I’m not going to give up all my plans because you left, and you’re going to have to accommodate my goals as well.

amazing

It’s amazing how fragile my psyche is right now.    I already wrote about how I feel seeing her, well, tonight she messaged me saying “don’t have time right now, but…”  and it just crushed me, I mean, I know that means she is going out.  Could be dinner, could be more, but of course my mind always envisious the worst.   Now I’ve been grumpy and near breaking down all night.   It’s funny, the thought of her with Jessie didn’t really bother me that much, it does a little, probably because I don’t really see him as a guy in the usual sense.  The thought of her with someone else, bothers me a lot, because I know if she develops a relationship with someone else, it will be filling in the gaps that she is missing, filling in for me.

Every once in a while as I’m driving home, or laying in bed, it hits me that she won’t be there, ever.

Seeing her

It seems that no one seems to realize that seeing her tends to ruin my whole fucking day.   I almost always end up either angry or sad.  More often than not lately it’s angry, often times over things not quite her fault, like the boys have picked up so many bad habits from Jessie’s teenage son, or I spend so much of my time just dealing with issues related to us living separate, or she’s always late toeverything, but that’s all for another time (or not).  I’m not sure what came over me today, but seeing her standing there I knew I had to get out, I tried (mostly successfully) to keep from crying most of the way home.

I suppose I should take this as a lesson about the nature of attachment, but that still doesn’t make it any less hard in the moment.   It’s so hard when my choices are be an absent dad, or deal with being around her.   And then she texts me on the way home and lets me know she got a flat, her second one of the day.  I’m not sure at all why she sent me a message.  My first inclination was to text her back “jessie is your man now, not me’  but obviously that wouldn’t accomplish anything.   I want to help out, but I also don’t want her to expect me to come running every time she needs something, she made a choice, and it wasn’t me.    By telling me, she just made me aware of a problem that I’m not in any position to fix, and that someone else is going to be coming to her aid, not me anymore.   I’m sure none of this was her intent, although I’m not sure what it was.  I know that I sometimes catch myself wanting to call or text her something that happened with me, out of habit.

It’s one thing to be rejected by someone you just met, as a guy, you kind of have to just get used to it, it happens all the time.  I usually just write it off as I didn’t make a great impression, and they didn’t really take the time to know me.  It’s another to be rejected by someone that you’ve spent 10 years with, and built up a life together.   I’ve noticed lately an awful lot of insecurity on my part about things that I was never insecure about before.   It may not be a bad thing, being too sure of yourself certainly isn’t good.  It’s a push to improve, and evaluate myself.   It’s also an opportunity for me to wrestle with it and learn how to deal with it.  I think in the past I have had insecurities, but they’ve always been subtle enough that I didn’t recognize them, or didn’t have to deal with them.   At the same time, it’s also lead to some jealousy issues and sometimes an failure to act, which is a bit of a new one for me.

Oh well, life goes on,  I should start visiting the Buddhists again, I think I need to find someone I can talk with individually.

Life without kids

I have to admit, there are some things that I’ve been looking forward to as part of C moving out.   Having time with just Bridget was pretty high on the list.  But I realize, it isn’t that I don’t want C here, it’s that I enjoy time without the kids.  It occurs to me this is another one of those things that you have to watch out for with poly.   It’s relatively easy to maintain fire and passion in a relationship if your going once a week to spend time with someone.   You know exactly what you are going there for, and it’s like a mini vacation, no kids, no distractions.  Then you come home, kids, distractions, bills, stress.  It’s pretty easy to think that other relationship is the better one, I would think.

I’ve always liked the idea of maintaining a separate apartment, that is for the live in couple to get that time away from the family, and the distractions.  It also makes it easier to enjoy the time that you do have with them.   Perhaps had I been able to follow through on that, things would have turned out differently.  A part of me has been tempted to just let the kids stay with C and Jessie full time, so they can see what it’s like.  But I want too much to be a part of thier life to do that.

I had an interview two weeks ago, and I was talking about leaving the tech industry to pursue real estate, and the interviewer asked me if I regretted that decision.  I almost broke down.  Professionally, I don’t regret the decision, I have learned a lot and grown a lot over the last 3 years.  I do however think it cost me my marriage.  If I had it to do over again, I’d have stayed at Sun.

Where do we go from here?

Last night Bridget said she wish I would let go of my pride and just ask CC to stay, express to her that I still want her here. So tonight I sat down and I tried to do that, I tried to write down exactly what it was I wanted from her and ask for it. I ran in to a bit of a problem. I really don’t know what, if anything, I want from the new and improved CC. Every time I try to talk to her about something, I feel like my voice doesn’t get heard at all. Her actions show her only thinking about herself, without even giving Bridget and I to benefit of common courtesy. Take away that and what is left? Sex? Is that really all I want from her, to be the occasional dominant partner that she needs? I do have a strong desire to be that for her, but I think that is out of a fear of being replaced. I know that eventually she is going to find a partner to fulfill those needs, and that will be the last little piece of me lost. As much as I’d like to stay together for the kids, if the last few months is any indication, this isn’t a healthy environment for them. So what is it I want from her? What is it I should ask for?

Moved out

Well, she officially moved out last week, probably the last time she’ll stay here, and the last time I’ll see her for quite some time.  Not sure what to make of that.  Sad and relieved at the same time.
Last night I asked the little guy where home is, and he said at Jessie’s, because that’s where Mommy is.

Windows and Blogs

I’ve seen a lot of comments on my blog about how I’m always down, or always thinking about CC.  And Bridget has received a lot of comments on her blog about how much I don’t appreciate her, or am taking advantage of her, based in part on some of the complaints that she has posted about me.

I think it is important to realize that when you read someone’s blog, you are peering through a window in to their life.  You are not seeing their entire life.  It’s like peering through someone’s bedroom window and concluding all they do is have sex and sleep.  Or looking in to the kitchen and concluding all they do is eat.   These blogs only show a portion of our life, so before jumping to conclusions, please keep that in mind.

Lonely

I’ve realized lately that I’m feeling pretty lonely.  At first, I couldn’t figure out why, I have Bridget and I definitely enjoy my time with her and how our relationship is developing.  But then I realized there are a lot of things I got from CC and shared with CC that I don’t have any more, there are a lot of things I’m so used to having, and they are gone, so it’s understandable that I feel that loss, even if I do have other good things in my life.