Talking Tough
Every relationship sometimes hits speedbumps as it drives around. It meets rough patches of road and unexpected potholes, sometimes an engine warning light flags up, and occasionally it breaks down or you even decide to sell the whole car and move on.
Dash and I recently hit a fair few rough patches of ground in a row, followed up by a bigger bump that set my warning lights a-blazing.
So today we agreed to meet up and talk. We spent two and a half hours together, eating breakfast, talking, crying and staring silently at walls. It was really hard.
But no one shouted. There was no blaming, finger pointing, raging, violence, or anger at each other for expressing our emotions.
In some ways it felt like we weren't making any progress because Dash apologised for his behaviour and stated his determination to do better, and after that more or less just listened and occasionally remembered something he'd struggled with over the weekend too, rather than immediately flaring back with a list of everything I'd done wrong. I felt like I wasn't being called out enough.
Except some of the times when M used to call me out, it was for actions or traits I was proud of, or at least comfortable with. I like the fact that I actively work to balance affection for my partners when they're in the same space, that I multiply my affection output so no one feels 'less than' or like they're losing out. I don't expect my partners to be happy with me ignoring them in favour of another partner, no matter how easy it is to slip into hyperfocus when NRE and sex are floating around.
Some of the boundaries I set in our talk were quite harsh ('I will not share a bed with you and two other of your partners again', 'when Bro and Z come to visit I will not spend evenings or nights with all three of you' and 'I will not visit Far Far Away with you to stay with Bro and Z again, from now on we go separately') but because Dash has been so gentle and willing to talk about how to make things easier as we go, I'm starting to try to come up with viable workarounds so we can all spend time together more easily.
Because at the end of the day, Bro and Z are my friends, and I do want to see them, and as they're starting relationships with Dash, they will come down to visit us both at the same time, but if we are just going to repeat last weekend I would rather miss out on the pleasure and leave them all to it. However, if we can find ways to make those times more enjoyable or even just bearable, it would make things easier.
It was hard talking today, very hard. It was Dash's and my first serious poly issue, and it took us both by surprise. But we are both very earnest, caring people and we speak similar languages. And despite each of us expecting a torrent of abuse from the other due to our respective histories, neither of us will give it to them. I hope this new way of communicating can help us both to grow and flourish in a gentle environment as well as the harsh ones we've known in the past.
