Deeper than the Surface

Here's a breakdown that I think is helpful to folks who haven't mentally envisioned what it's like to be non monogamous in a not-deceiving fashion.

Imagine for a moment you have the following 2 situations:

1: You have 2 children.

2: You have 2 parents (with whom you get along and had a mostly healthy relationship with).


Situation #1:
You have a daughter and a son. They're completely different people. Having one child would never prevent you from loving the second child. Your interactions with the two children are entirely different, but you feel the same levels of caring and love. Their personalities are different from each other, they have different strengths and weaknesses, preferences and dislikes. Even your wife or husband has a different connection with the children. In fact, having these kids doesn't withdraw your love from your spouse for that matter, or the other child. You do, however - have to manage your time differently surrounding extra personal connections with these fellow humans, your offspring. You also connect totally differently based off of who you are, and who they are. You structure your life based off of what people exist in it, this includes kids.
Much is the same in regards to adding relationships that are possibly more than friendships.


Situation #2:
You have two parents. You do not love your mother or father more than the other. Or do you? Would you ever socially say as much? Probably not if you did. (This supposes you have a relatively healthy connection to both of them). You may have a preference for one, or perhaps you like your Mom in some situations better than your Dad. Or vice versa. They fulfill different roles possibly. Maybe they do fulfill different roles, or maybe not. This happens with partners too, if you have more than one. Preference for differing roles does in fact happen, but it isn't to say you necessarily have a "favorite." And if you did, you'd be a total jackass who didn't deserve either/any partners, because bringing that to light is truly an asshole move. In my not so humble opinion.


To move on to a third example for aid in understanding this - one could say you have no limit to the number of friends you have. Everyone's friend circle differs a bit, including the severity of each friendship. Perhaps you have a personal preference also on how many and how close they are, but that doesn't mean because you have ONE friend, you stop connecting with others and refuse more friendships. This is similar to how poly folks view relationships.


Polyamory differs often from swinging. Swinging is purely a physical thing most often, where polyamory most often is based off of emotional connections that may also have physical aspects like a "regular romantic relationship." (Commonly accepted mainstream vision.) It may not, though. Some do have more casual physical encounters than others. It really depends on the individual who practices the open relationship lifestyle. Configurations differ in as many ways as you can imagine.


This also brings up other considerations. The idea that someone is poly and wants endless partners is pretty inaccurate. Just as some people choose to have 1 or 2 kids, or maybe others are OK with 5... but most people aren't OK with 5... the same is true of poly partners.

I do not like to have more than 3 people who I date and schedule as romantic connections in my orbit at once. Mostly because I also like to have friends without romance too!!!! And jobs and other family members.

3 is too many as far as I am concerned depending on the levels of the relationships. Which is my biggest conflict right now. I have two "primary" type men in my life. This is a lot. I stopped seeing my other guy not because we broke up - but because I met a second "primary" type connection. We're still open to connect if we get the chance; he consequently took another lover because I became a bit more scarce. It wasn't a bad thing. That or he just likes lotsa ladies. And the ladies like him ;)

MY definition of Primary partner is as follows:
The kind of person you basically live with and make major life decisions with, is what I call a primary.

There are what some call "secondaries," which is not to say they are less important, but they play a different role in ones' life. Some people actually reject these categories because they feel it reduces people to being less important than others. I just need classifications sometimes; but not to raise someone above others. I also try not to do this to my friends, either. But I do have a couple of people that I call my "best friend."
Back the idea of a secondary partner: Maybe you only see them once a week or once a month. You probably don't make your financial decisions or living arrangements different for these secondary kind of boyfriends or girlfriends.

The other thing is that EVERYONE runs it a little differently. That's true of monogamous people, but you'd never know because no one ever talks about how each monogamous relationship is different.


Speaking of this - with Jim, I often found him looking for potential partners with folks who were not already poly. I tried to coach him into the idea that he must search in the right places. For one because you get a shit ton of rejection if you don't seek out already poly folks.
Also because it is, as I see it - mostly unwise and searching for failure to look for single people who are monogamy minded. Not cool for them and not cool for you. I am entirely uninterested in men, for instance, who are married monogamously. There are often people who worry when they hear about poly that these folks are freaks with no rules or no regard for respecting anyone. I really am only interested in people who are honest, and who also want to have this lifestyle for themselves. Which includes total transparency.

The notion that poly folks have no regard or rules? It could pretty much not be further from the truth. The notion that I'd ever be interested in a cheating spouse. YUCK. (I've had women think that simply because I was poly, I wanted to "Steal" their boyfriend or husband.) No, thank you. People are SERIOUSLY not objects or property to be owned by me anyway. Nor am I interested in any dishonest, life-ruining relationships. And that includes anyone that I'm not already in a relationship with. Mostly, I just want to live my life like everyone else. Surrounded by great people, experiencing and learning with these people.

That said, a poly relationship does not operate that differently than any other. It would be unacceptable and disrespectful to evade conflict with one partner by going to the other partner. Possibly even abusive. These scenarios may happen with some people (Just as monogamous people do terrible things to some of their partners). The question was posed to me if I am angry at one man, do I rush off to the other one. This does not solve a problem that arises between me and the first guy. That's not a very kind way to treat a partner. Someone that you love and care for. That's pretty rude, and what I see as somewhat abusive. If you cannot confront conflict in one relationship, this relationship is headed for ultimate doom eventually. It will not turn out well. You are probably not ready for more than one relationship, or maybe you need to do work on yourself before you even have a single, solitary, monogamous partner. These are bad ways to treat anyone in any relationship configuration.

Given that I was with my boyfriend for years before I had other partners, I definitely did not develop the habit of being a jerk to him when we had problems. Personally, I try a lot harder in a poly environment to be kind and gentle with my partners than I do in monogamy. I have in fact done both relationship setups, and I can be either poly or mono. Some people cannot be poly, others cannot successfully be monogamous. It's true. We're all different. The biggest thing I found fascinating upon learning about polyamory is that there was a default setting; but also options BEYOND the commonly accepted and assumed monogamy model. I HAD NO IDEA. And the big thing is the knowledge to choose what works for you, rather than accept blindly what everyone says you must do.

To go back to what I was saying prior:
I work really hard to be fair, to hear people out, to communicate, and not to squash and crush someone's heart and feelings. My feelings of love create the urge to do right by these people. Even in moments of stress and difficulty. Especially in those moments.

​People that you have around in your life, it is best to treat them well. Like your children, friends, or parents. Family members. My polyamorous partners are my family.

Some people fail at treating others well. Some people don't fail at that. This logic transfers over. Some people are amazing to their wives and husbands. Some are not. I'm a pretty loyal person. I operate off of as much compassion as I can. I worry a lot about how someone feels, what my actions do to the emotions of others. I think about it a lot more than I wish I did at times. ​How you handle poly interactions, communications, changeovers, plans, guidelines and rules, committing to following through with what you've agreed with between everyone - that all has direct consequence. Sometimes the consequences are quicker and more ugly or more beautiful in poly setups. I have worked a lot and observed and trial/error'd a lot of this. I still worry I will botch it up. Sometimes I do. I try and understand when my partners make mistakes, that I must be forgiving for the same reason that I cannot be perfect either.

This is basically how I view polyamory in my life.

Details?

I have a calendar. There are basically days I spend in one house and days I spend in the other house. It is difficult at times. But we do this to children when folks divorce, so how bad can it be for an adult? In fact, I understand the challenges of what children of divorcees must feel. Sometimes it's totally fine. Other times it really, really sucks.

As far as being out about polyamory. Some people I'm OK with sharing this part of my life. Other times I want to appear normal like everyone else. Often, it feels as though nothing in my life has run as it tends to for mainstream people. It's not limited to my relationships, but certainly that is notable. There are moments I like to pretend, just for a little while, that nothing is weird/abnormal/constantly questioned, or worse - judged negatively, and invalidated about my relationship/s.

The last concept I feel inclined to address about this is the concept that if you are dating more than one person, that you are not truly committed.

I'd like to say if that if someone has love for someone else, and that breaks your commitment - this is in my eyes, a different level of commitment. The actuality of my husband or boyfriend being in love with another man or woman and NOT breaking my union or relationship ACTUALLY expresses a different kind of commitment. To remain together and appreciate that they value someone else as well as you, IS commitment too. Commonly accepted cultural views say that being "exclusive" is the only way to have commitment. This is wrong. I commit to loving my men regardless of who else they may fall in love with and become physical with - provided we follow guidelines and agreements that we've come to. Because if you break guidelines and agreements, this qualifies as cheating - whether you are monogamous, or polyamorous. If you can support somebody connecting with others and still have a strong, loving relationship - I argue directly that this has nothing to do with lacking commitment, but rather just the opposite.

And when I am in poly places, it feels good to know I am not alone, that I am not a freak, and that my problems and struggles are normal too. To feel understood. There are times that being misunderstood about my open relationships is frustrating. Especially if they're wildly inaccurate, or terribly unfair notions, that may make me appear to be anything less than what I really am.

-Angela

I used to always write them up in MS Word first, but it seems that's creating resistance as to getting back into my LJ flow here. So I'm going straight to the LJ browser and going to hit this LJ stuff again! I'm tired of my forgetful nature and if I don't journal, I literally will have a harder time remembering what was going through my head when I look back. 2013 I want to get serious again about LJ. I know some of you are still out there. And if you're not... I write to myself. This is a public, but I think my privacy friends locked posts will become more ubiquitous. there's a lot of stuff that I see happening in the next 12 months, and some of it isn't going to be stuff I want the entire world to read about.

( Quick 2012 RunDown. )

BOOM.
2013 arrives.

-Angela

It has been a long while since I had an opportunity to write in my livejournal. It has been dormant. A lot has been happening. So much unrecorded, but in truth I can remember all of it right now. It’s later on when the months pass that I will forget the things I no longer wrote it the LJ land. Since I last posted, I have been cast in Rite of Sol, I have become a sub teacher instead of a regular teacher at my home studio and a regular teacher at Bikram Yoga Redmond, as well as Bikram Yoga Kirkland.

My Grandma died, I am still managing my Grandpa’s funds, we as a family are also taking care of Grandpa, making sure he is doing okay. This is a challenge in and of itself.
I am happily engaged in the polyamorous lifestyle. Every minute seems filled with abundance at this point. Sometimes this is the biggest bliss point ever – and other times a plate or two that I am spinning starts to tip over and I falter. The biggest challenge at the moment is to get the YOGA for myself. I went through a phase where I didn’t teach very much for a brief month, and then it came slamming back with a vengeance. Alongside my city job, all of this does take some managing. Especially given the fact I am involved with three different studios on the eastside, among other things.
The word abundance really captures how I feel. The gratitude I feel every day for the people who I am directly involved with regularly, and the studios I “work” in. Teaching Yoga is a blessing and something that while I sacrifice my own practice at times, is entirely worth the struggles I have endured to get to where I am today. I am becoming a stronger teacher, and continue to aspire to the best verbatim Dialogue that I know how. My brother is back in the orbit of the family, and we are grateful for his presence in our family again after his isolation and soon to be ex-wife situation. We are happy. It is apparent that HE is happy, too. Recently being hit with a strange virus that claimed his voice TEMPORARILY… well, he’s struggling through that.

James is a rare gift of a person. I think that is why it bothered me so much when he was no longer a part of my life, in major part due to the spite of one woman. The good news is that while Grandma’s story was ending, she brought James back into the family as she left mortality. Both of them are very important people to the family.

I am learning a lot about the family at this juncture in time, and have been all of 2012. My role has been harried to say the least.
And the rest of 2012 is going to see a lot more Yoga teaching for me – I look forward to sharing the yoga with people all over the place, and transforming my teaching more and more and more and more.

There’s nowhere else to go, here – but up. And the people who I am able to see are so very special to me! I have the most beautiful circle of friends. While I wish I had more time for things and was further at my Deacon memorization, I also realize I have limitations. And a whole life time. We’ll see what I can do. I was starting to make progress in April, and since then life has been a whirlwind.

Needless to say, Life is Quite amazing for me right now.
I work hard. I rest just enough. I need more yoga, but I am working on that constant balance of teaching and taking and living and loving! And I am more than thrilled to be a part of the cast of Rite of Sol this year. This is something I wanted to be a part of for years.

And choosing to take care of myself first - and consciously acknowledging the people that will harbor a giving and receiving nature within friendships, relationships. Particularly in the times I needed it most. Because my energy reserves waned when some serious things were going on with the family.

And all the good stuff? Well. I worked for all of that. I'm not going to lie. Product of hard work, blood, sweat, and yes - tears!

So here it is!!!!
Growth experiences abound.

-Angela

It’s a good day for an LJ post. What contrasting weekends, this weekend and last! Last weekend I was peppered with Seattle-events, my sweet and dear new friend from Australia, (we’ve only known each other since CGW5) but none the less.
This weekend was special in 2 ways already. I hadn’t seen Mom in a couple of weeks, which was feeling weird this time around because we’d seen TONS of each other for a couple of weeks prior (particularly with Amber being a puppy and Classy the car needing trips to the mechanic.) AND, Amanda got married.

( Long Updating. )

-Angela

Given the fact that Jim's tires on his Front Wheel Drive car are pretty much bald, and the 3-4 inches of snow that we got here in our neighborhood, we decided that he had two options. Call out - or get a ride from me down the hill in my AWD Subaru, the one that just got new tires.

I found myself clambering out of bed at 5AMish, (in spite of his strong inclination to call out) which resulted in... Jim to arrive at his place of employment pretty much on time. And I think maybe I should brush my teeth and hit the gym, instead of wasting the fact that I'm awake on going back to sleep. Just maybe. Tempting to go run in the snow because I've never done that, but I'm not sure that's my idea of an awesome morning? It might not go as easily as I'd wish. However, there's something very tempting about the adventure and the challenge. I just don't want to land on my ass somewhere on the sidewalk. That would suck. My other alternative is the treadmill. Or should I say, Dreadmill. Do I really want to hit the dreadmill? These are the hard questions I face. And I don't have much time to make up my mind.

I guess I will just go to the warm gym. It's smarter. And warmer.
Wait. Let me take this back. This is going to sound silly, but I let my hair dry last night so I could flat iron it today...
Crap. Maybe I will hit the gym AFTER work. Hm. This is too difficult. ;) I would apologize, but this is my journal, so no apologies are needed: for the goofy, early morning, stream of consciousness for the day.
Hell. I can flat iron it tomorrow.
At least there's one thing: my car is already cleared off for my commute in.
And another early morning notion: If I had an Airline company, I'd call it Angela Airlines.
I'm just saying.

-Angela

Been a strange time. Not all bad, just very contrasting in short periods of time. Dare I say Manic?
At times I've been super positive and been pushing myself towards the best side of myself that I can be. Some of the time I've fallen off some kind of cliff and gotten down and confused and lost.

Most of the time I've been happy and positive and heading towards my goals.
My biggest goal is ShapeShifting wise, but that hasn't changed for roughly 2 years so I'm not going to go into depth with it.

In fact, most of those 2 years, I was closer than I had any idea, to my goal - than I realized.
Oops.

Other goals include greater self acceptance instead.

This weekend I have newly created plans with Kelsi on Sunday night. We haven't hung out in months, so that should be nice. Tried calling her a few times in the last week and figured it was ok that I didn't get through. Wasn't sure what I wanted to talk about...

Am hitting the gym, and running when I can... in the midst of a 30 day Yoga trial and loving it. Except last night when I was feeling down on my physical body. Today should be better. I'm intending on taking a double (2 classes) tonight to kick off my weekend.

Get ahead on that 30 day schedule - yeah? :)
If I get to the end of the 30 days, I might go for a 60 day. We'll see. If I don't feel like it, I don't.
As for anything else... grateful every day I spend with Jim in our home together, in our relationship together. We make each other smile more and more lately than I've ever remembered. It's a crazy-wild thing. 4 years and I feel like we've reached another NRE stage? I'm not sure. All I know is that we're in sync right now and it's nice.

To be feeling this way is definitely different than any other relationship I was in around this point. We're working out issues in our partnership and really getting content with what that means. Sometimes, problems take months and months to make progress on. He is so positive and so uplifting, that in spite of my general tendency to be a negative nancy, we still spend our time together for the most part in bliss.

Who knew.

And the more time that goes by, I realize how much he appreciate me for who I am, even if that is inherently flawed, at times lacking self image confidence and self esteem.

Anyway. That's all, for now! I am succeeding in posting in May. I'll keep at it!

-Angela

My biggest piece of advice from Jim in the past few days was to live in the moment, from moment to moment. That is how he made it through a lot of his hardships without losing his shine, his positive nature. Focus on the things that aren't amiss, and the things that are will not be so hard to endure.

I am guessing at the fact that all this life stuff is drowning me a little, but I've got to pull out of it. I've got to.

I can't let this sadness defeat me right now. I have another month of hard work before I can relax... but I should learn to relax in the midst of this. So my knees hurt. That's ok. It means I have to watch my food closer when I can't find it in me to work out. I need to start living off of more structured plans, because I know I am more apt to succeed this way and be less off kilter.

I've got to stop focusing on the things that make me angry, that progress my downward spirals. I've got to change the way I think, and keep working at it. And working at it and working at it. I've got all sorts of support from Jim right now - and without that I think I'd be so much worse off.

Right now he has taken over as liaison of our loan matters. I think that is the best thing that could have happened. I was at it for a couple of months (Since Aug 1st) with the house business, and after 2 months of it, I am spent on the notion.

I'd complain about the economy, but I honestly think the economy has less to do with us than our personal situations. It frustrates me when my co workers talk about the bigger issues looming out there. (Read, bail out). I'd rather just forget I'm in the midst of loan processing. They don't help.

I've got to live moment to moment and thinking about those larger issues just makes me feel that drowning feeling even more.

And not to dwell on that. The best part of this is that our lenders so far with FHA have been more positive I think. So it's just a matter of us waiting and praying that all falls into place anyway. I never have gotten the feeling that "we've lost the place," yet. And my gut has been pretty good in the last 5 years of my life. It's the waiting that I've got to learn to deal with. And if it doesn't work out - so be it. It will not have been because I made shitty money or had poor credit. It will have been something bigger than me.

Because I'm going to be honest. I make good money. With Jim's smaller income, we make decent combined monies. I have excellent credit. He has almost excellent credit (damn him for not spending his money on random shit and credit cards, he kept it in cash for gods'sake).

God forbid somebody not waste their cash on useless crap (like I did).
Well, my furniture and random other worldly goods are things I don't regret having, and they did help build my credit. I have an excellent score.

So on the positives:

My knee is slowly behaving today. Although I have taken 3 days or so off of working out, I think my body might have needed it.
I cannot be negative on it. I must listen to my body. I must also treat myself like my very best friend. And pretty much that's easy to do. After all - my best friends are all off doing their own thing right now.

My other very best friend is Jim. I need to stop acting out against him and use him as my team member. I have possibly been taking my life frustrations out on him. It's not his fault. None of it is. There is nothing he has done that has been anything but good.

He is working hard overnight full time. He is bringing home money, paying his half, and doing his best to cope with a girlfriend who is half falling apart emotionally. He is scarifacing sleep in order to resolve greater good for our team.

What I really need is to reclaim the tenderness and the adorable infatuation that I know exists between us. Instead of putting up barbed wired walls and barricading myself into a square pen that only hurts me.

I'm trying my best.
I will continue to eat the healthy foods and make my goal by the time we move. I'd like to lose 1 lb per week. That gives me roughly 3-5 lbs.

If I gain, like I did last week - so what. I need to keep trying to be strong and do what I can when I can. And not push those runs. I might scale back my time from 19/3/19 (with 10 min warm up and 10 cool down) back to 17/2/17 (with 10 min warm up cool down) once the knee flair up goes away.

I might also add I am going to run my 5K this weekend and do my very best. And not care. I'm a runner and that isn't going to go away. Not because I have to slow down, not because I'm injured, not because my life feels like it is falling down around me.

I never would have found this identity so strong without this heart breaking half a year. Although I wish I were 138 and running those 11:26 minute 1.5 milers, (my early 08 stats) it doesn't mean that the 146, god'knows'how fast girl cannot get back there. Maybe 6 months from now, maybe a year. I don't care.

It still beats the 170 me of Early 07. And I have proved to myself I can train back up relatively easily, and my head is motivated. I just need to ensure my body is ready for it. Slow, slow, slow progressions. No hills.

One other thing is that my size 7s are fitting rather unsnugly. So the size 5s are probably just snugish. Not so bad, between 5 and 7. I can accept this as an interim size. It's rather good.

In the positives:
My arms are badass. Quite a lot more badass than they were 8 months ago.

So today, I am going to break my 3-4 day work out break, ignore the fact that last week was a 1 lb gain, and put as much energy as I can into building a weekly schedule/plan for my workouts/also stretching strength training on my legs. I've got to come out of this ahead.

And I think I might go in to the doctor and have a talk (a different one) about where I am in the healing process, and request an MRI because damnit, my insurance covers it and I don't want to fuck around.

I might also talk to them about some of the extreme depressive lows I've experienced in the last 6 months, and my current life situation. Although I am not proud of where I've been... I must admit it has been a worse mental state than I've ever seen in my life.

I've got to remember that this taking control of me is a long, slow, patient process.

-Angela

Lunch with the beau and a slightly longer-the-my-lunch-hour nap combined have done wonders.
I don't know why, it is just hard to stay down long around Jim.

-Angela

( Oooh, it is never dull for me. )

-Angela

One day I met a soldier.
And then I saw him again.
And again and again.
And then I fell in love.
And now I know many soldiers.

Once upon a time I wondered what it would be like to know a soldier.
Like I knew it would one day become an intimate thing to me.
I just didn't think my intuition knew a damn.
But then why is it we don't always trust ourselves?
I thought:
Where would I ever REALLY run into one of these people?
As if. Incredibly unlikely, I thought.

-Angela