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.