an existential keekah

I bet quite a few of you readers are curious as to how my new triad/poly relationship is faring these days? I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that, once again, I’ve not posted in quite awhile. Well, it isn’t because my relationship is going badly and I’ve retreated within; nor is it because it is going so well that I’m basking in poly nirvana.

Nope, its sheer busy-ness that keeps me from posting. I have all these great idea for posts and no time to write them. I considered letting all of November just go on by without even a teeny tiny post from yours truly.  But since you wondered, I thought I’d tell ya – my poly relationship is going pretty smoothly. Now, I’m not gonna lie and say it is all roses and tequila for everyone. But all in all, it’s going really well. Of course, I can best describe it by sharing a story so you can relate better.

At the end of September, J and I had a final birthday celebration with our friend, C, whose birthday is also in September. We kind of made a pact to throw a joint birthday celebration every September, invite all our friends, see who shows up, and get thoroughly trashed with anyone who did. I’m proud to say we kept up the tradition this year and had a blast. It was quite a turnout and such an eclectic group of folks since it was a mixture of C’s friends, C’s and my friends, J’ friends, and J and my friends. And J and I invited N, our new girlfriend, to join us as well.  The three of us had only been dating a little over two months at that point and this was the first time we were going out in the “straight” world as a thruple. N, of course, had concerns about what her role was or how she was to identify herself to our friends. J and I quickly assured her neither of us had problems identifying her as “our girlfriend.” And so we all just relaxed around each other and enjoyed everyone around us.

As I said earlier, we had quite a large turnout. I was in tip-top form, as always, being the adorable Mon-Mon you all know and love. I drank (a lot) and initiated shots with anyone who wanted to do shots (a lot). And I danced (a lot), which if you haven’t experienced the drunk Mon-Mon dancing to Metallica, then honestly you haven’t lived yet. Seriously.

At one point I sat down, tipsy and giggling, and quickly realized I had lost track of J and N in that moment.  I had not a clue where either one had gone or could be.

Now, as a preface to this next part, I have to backtrack a bit to my previous triad relationship with J and our now ex-gf, K. You have to understand the dynamics that were in play in that relationship before you can appreciate my state of mind in September. In that previous relationship, if I’d lost sight of J or K in a bar when we were with a large group of friends like that – well it would’ve inspired true fear and despair within me. (Honestly, we wouldn’t have been in such a large group – large groups were not K’s specialty.)

You see, I spent most of my nights out with J and K wondering what exactly was going to set K off that night in one of her infamous explosions of insecurity and jealousy and rarely had a moment to enjoy the pleasure of anyone’s company. I admit I would watch and wait endlessly for her to drink a little too much, take something out of hand, and then watch her temper explode and ruin all of our nights. I suppose one could argue that my waiting for it to happen actually made it happen. But truthfully, it rarely took much to set her off.

Like the one New Year’s Eve that we went out with our mutual friend, and I dared to sit in the back seat with J instead of in the front with our friend who drove. And J dared to hold my hand in the back seat. Those acts had her climbing out of the car in tears at our final destination and all but running to the women’s restroom. I calmed her down a bit, but it took her the better part of an hour to even look at J afterwards – I guess because she blamed him for it.

Or the night we met two of my friends out for drinks where she and J spent time acting as a couple while I paid attention to my two friends whom I hadn’t hung out with for awhile. For the better part of two hours everything was fine because she had all of J’s attention… until he dared to bestow one tiny kiss on me (no tongue even), which she saw from afar. And of course she didn’t like it. She said to him, “I saw what you did… kissed her behind my back…” then accused J of ignoring her and started a huge fight between the two of them and ruined another night for all of us.

So you see, it wasn’t jealousy that had me worried about where they could be but fear as to what might have happened to inspire one of her hissy fits. But if I’m honest, maybe it was partly jealousy too. It is hard to be in love and date someone in a polyamorous relationship who thinks like K did – I mean, if she was constantly jealous of any amount of attention I got from J then how could I prevent myself from responding in kind eventually when they had their moments? I’m only human. I would often wonder how she could claim to love me as she did when she was so envious of any attention I got from J. It was a cyclic process with K and me, and those moments when I was alone and couldn’t find them, well it had me worrying about what might transpire next.

I will also admit that very early in our triad relationship (like the first 2-3 months), I did have similar fears (not reactions) as K did about her and J. I could actually relate to her fears, just not how she handled those fears. Eventually I grew comfortable in the fact that J loved K and he loved me. I grew comfortable in the knowledge that he could do so without it taking away from me. Whereas K never seemed to get better, and in fact, the situations got worse and worse before the relationship itself finally fell apart.

Fast forward to that night in September, when I realized I didn’t know where J and N were; When I realized I hadn’t seen them in at least 15 minutes, maybe longer. And I realized I wasn’t worried in the slightest. Then my epiphany – N had never given me cause to worry – N actually cared about both J AND me.

We do experience problems in our triad. Heck, the same issues that arose in my previous triad have come to head in this one too. I mean there are three of us – which means sometimes one person can feel left out or left behind – especially in this couple-dominated world. Who sits in the back seat? Who sits where in a booth at a restaurant? Who is whose “significant other” at work-sponsored Christmas party? Who sleeps in the middle? All of this stuff is still true. Even the feelings these situations inspire today are ones I’ve confronted in my past triad relationship.

The difference is N. When she is feeling something – good or bad – she talks about it. She doesn’t let it fester and doesn’t use it in a fight against one or both of us. That makes all the difference. Plus, I really do think the fact that she cares about both J and me and understands that J is her boyfriend, and yeah, I’m her girlfriend makes the difference as well. She also doesn’t see the relationship between J and me as a threat or something bad. She respects what we have and she honors it in every action and every thought she has with regards to J and me. That itself is a precious gift that I try never to take for granted.

We still have our moments. We still all have areas that need improvement, areas where we each can grow.   I don’t know what is going to happen… I don’t know if my thruple will make it for the long run, if we will part as friends – better for knowing and loving one another - or if one of more of us will leave for another relationship.  None of us have guarantees of forever.

But for now, we are just enjoying being in our little thruple. So thanks for asking.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 11:33 am and is filed under Birthdays, ex-girlfriend, polyamory, relationships, Truths. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.