Soon

I washed my reading glasses this evening because I realized the lenses were stained. Those blotches were made by tears. I cry probably every night I am not with him. Tears are not foreign to me, they come easily. And they come very easily when I think of him with his other lover.

But soon he won't be with her, he will be with me, and all this will recede and I will be happy and my love for him will eclipse all the bad stuff that surges inside me when he is with her. Then he will leave and the cycle will move on and I will weep again.

I did some searching on the internet this evening and it was comforting to find I am not alone in my situation. There are many sites that refer to relationships where one partner is poly and the other is monogamous. One of the wisest pieces of advice I found was this: find out what each person needs to feel loved, and make an effort to provide that. The needs and desires of both people in a primary relationship need to be met, and a conscious effort on the part of the poly partner to help his/her partner feel loved and appreciated goes a long ways towards making the relationship worthwhile and successful. While this particular piece of advice refers to the needs of the mono partner, I do see how the poly partner should also have his need to feel loved met. And if that involves more than one person, then that is who he (or she is). I love this man and I have to recognize this is who he is.

I think my attitude was poisoned early on in the relationship when I had a conversation with a woman who has known him since he was a teenager. She and her husband are both poly and have a very successful relationship. She said to me, "I don't think (X) is truly poly." She is an intelligent woman who knows the poly world and I clung to what she said for a couple of years, thinking that she must be right, and that ultimately he would stop seeing other people. I even asked him to try being mono with me for a while, but he said no. Then a few months ago this woman whose word I had believed as gospel said to me, "I think I was wrong. I think he really is poly." My stomach turned, but I knew she was right. I should not have set so much stock by what she said in the first place, but it was like a very long lifeline for me, and I had held onto it for far too long. After she changed her opinion, I blamed her for a while, but a person can have opinions that change. It's ok. It wasn't her fault. She was speaking the truth as she found it at the time. I foolishly (and hopefully) operated on the basis that her observations were accurate. I should have listened to him. He has never waivered from his stance that he is poly and that he wants multiple loving relationships.

One of the sites I visited this evening referred to our seeking out our shadow selves in love relationships. The writer may be right. This shadow self of mine fulfills me in so many ways , and I need to embrace the relationship. As I move toward our reunion in a couple of days, my heart is softening as it always does, and I know this pain will subside. Another site reports that many of the people in such relationships decide that the pain is worth it. I know I have. I know I can walk away if it becomes too much. It hasn't. It is worth it. And I'll be with him soon.

Visiting

In a few days I am going to visit my lover's house. His other lover will have just left. I have asked him to put away any of her things that may be lying around in the bathroom. Too intimate for me to face. She has the opportunity to be at his home more than I do, so I feel strange about going. He lives in a wonderful house in a beautiful area, and I have always loved being there, but it is several months since I have had the opportunity to go to him (he comes to me) and in the interim she has been there several times. I feel like a second string, like I don't belong there, that she has supplanted me in that place that I love so much. I am aware that they have taken the walks together that I so enjoy taking with him. That they have gone to the same restaurants. I am concerned that she and he have been seen together round town and that people think she is his girlfriend - which she is. But what does that make me?

I am going to see at least one of his friends and I know she has met and spent time with his other lover, and I just feel weird about it. I have a sense of feeling inferior, an outsider, that there is some big secret that I can't be part of. Some of this, I know, stems from a sense of exclusion and abandonment I carry from my childhood (what a wonderful characteristic to bring to a poly relationship!), but I know there is more to it. It brings me back to the unanswerable question, the one that is entirely inappropriate to ask in a poly relationship, namely, why can't I be enough for him? I know that poly just doesn't work that way, that a poly person wants and needs more than one loving relationship, so it is not the right question. I can't help hearing it in the back of my head, though, from time to time, especially when I know they are together.

These are the bad times, when we are apart and they are together. It is easier when we are apart and they are apart. And it is just wonderful when we are together and they are apart. I love this man so very much and we fit so well together in so many ways. And I know he loves me. These bad times are to be gotten through. I drag myself from day to day and try not to mope. Only a couple more days...

Tonight

And tonight he is with her. He will be for another week. I am trying to remain upbeat. But I am sad and can't get the image of him going to bed with her, waking up with her, being with her out of my mind.

He sent me a sweet e-mail. But he is still with her. And I am alone.

My Lover is Polyamorous and I'm Not

I have been in a relationship with my lover for nearly three years. He is polyamorous. I am not. We live more than 400 miles away from each other. I have a job and he is retired, although he sometimes does some consulting work. He is comfortable financially. I scrape by. He has one other lover and is always open to more. I tried dating another poly person once and found it excruciatingly uncomfortable.

We are very much in love with each other and share many interests, have similar educations and beliefs, and laugh a lot together. Our sex life is very active and passionate. We have traveled together and spent time with each other's families. We are both divorced with children who are young adults. Even though we live so far away from each other, since he does not have a regular job we are able to see each other for at least a third of each month. During that time, we are very close. In the periods that we are apart, he sees his other lover for part of the time. And during those times, I am not permitted to call him.

When I first met him, he was involved with a woman he had been with for several years, a woman with a very powerful and demanding personality. He continued with her and with me, and developed relationships with two other women as well. For my first New Year with him, he had a party and three of us were there. It was utterly overwhelming for me, and if I could have run away, I would have. We learned not to do that again. In time, he broke up with the strong woman, and one of the others broke up with him. Then he met someone else, and he has been with her now for over 18 months. Now it is just her and me. He spends holidays with me, and more time with me than he does with her.

But she is there. She is there in his life and isn't going anywhere. She and I tried connecting with her via e-mail, but it ended badly.

My lover is polyamorous and I'm not. Even if his other lover did go somewhere, he would doubtless find someone else. He wants and needs more than one loving relationship in his life. I want only one relationship, and that is with him. I believe I love him more than I loved my ex-husband before everything went bad. I want to grow old with him. And the pain when he is with her can be intense. I weep, I feel alone and rejected. And then we are together again and it all fades away, except for the occasional pang when I know that he has had a text or is responding to an e-mail from her, discreet as he is trying to be.

It's been nearly three years, and I am coming to the realization that it will never be easy, that I will always feel alone and rejected when he is with another lover, whoever it may be. It's who I am. It is a little less acute some times than others, then when I know he is doing something special with her, the sense of exclusion and loss builds high, and the pain deepens.

I am willing to pay that price because I love him deeply. It's like a wound that I am learning to live with.