My Lesbian Lover is Someone Else's Wife
(A different kind of happily ever after?)
When I first started blogging, I was happy. Happy that I was finally starting to escape the emotional blackmail and agony that was my experience of monogamy. I was in love with two men, and blind to everything but the fact that I was in love with both of them. I didn't see their faults, mine, or the fault-lines in our relationships. I let them both treat my natural tendency towards multiple relationships as a guilty, dirty secret because I accepted their 'need for privacy' as a part of them. It was only later that I came to realise that actually, neither of them was happy. Tallboy was 'putting up with' my behaviour because he was scared of losing me. It was a shock to realise that, apparently, I had been the one holding him to ransom. That he'd been making arbitrary rules as a means to try and keep some sort of control, and it was a shock when I found out just how scared he was of other people thinking him a 'cuckold'. It still makes my chest tighten a bit to think about it. Busybee... well, he's still something of a mystery. To me, to Duchess, and I suspect to himself. I still can't help having both warm and wistful thoughts about both of them, but they're not major parts in my life any more.
So why am I thinking about things so far in the past, and so painful? Because over the last few weeks, the last few months, I've started finally to realise what an excellent job those two men (and, admittedly, a previously monogamist-centred upbringing) did of making me feel bad about myself, just by being the way they were, and because I'm starting to realise just how much I'd actually internalised those views, how much I felt I was a dirty guilty secret, something to be hidden and sneaked in and out of places. Something to be ashamed of.
It's taken the best part of a year, and three lovely people to make me realise first that I'd felt that way, and that it was wrong. Don't get me wrong, I've never *felt* that what I did was dirty and should be hidden away, but I had learned that other people didn't think the same way. That I couldn't trust my feelings on this.
When I first played with Miss Sunshine and her husband, I asked her if she minded my mentioning it in my blog, knowing that people we both know would read it. I expected her to say no, and was literally shocked by the fact that she didn't. I was awed and humbled by her relaxed attitude to it - we had been friends a long time, and she could see no problem with being associated with me. This is a lady who is happily, and monogamously married, and from a religious, if open minded background. A woman whom I love and respect. This beautiful woman was happy for people to know that we were connected in that way, and her husband too.
Then there's Nice Guy, who has been beautiful all the way through, despite not being 'poly', just fair and open minded. While his friends were telling him he was crazy to be in an open relationship, he backed me up, even if he wasn't entirely sure of things himself. He's made me feel all kinds of things, but dirty isn't one of them. Amazingly, he's even told his mother about our relationship as well, and apparently she likes me anyway. I wish I wasn't so surprised, as in an ideal world everyone would be as open minded, but I keep smacking against the walls of my well-worn cynicism. Parents are on the list of people you just don't tell about this sort of thing, according to everything I've been taught by society, by friends, and by my older loves.
The thing that brought it home to me finally, was going to two parties last weekend, first with NG to a friend's engagement party, and with Mountain to a birthday brunch for one of his friends, and neither of them is trying to pretend that we don't know each other, that we're platonic friends, or that we're really a monogamous couple, we just are what we are.
That we could do that, without the world collapsing into dust, and without anybody looking upset, or shocked, or angry. It felt good. It made me want to cry for all the stuff I've come through to get here. It made me feel humble, that there are people I love and admire who are happy to be seen with me that way. It made me feel that tiny timid hope, that maybe things really could be how I naively imagined them to be, back when I started writing.
It felt like coming home.
When I first started blogging, I was happy. Happy that I was finally starting to escape the emotional blackmail and agony that was my experience of monogamy. I was in love with two men, and blind to everything but the fact that I was in love with both of them. I didn't see their faults, mine, or the fault-lines in our relationships. I let them both treat my natural tendency towards multiple relationships as a guilty, dirty secret because I accepted their 'need for privacy' as a part of them. It was only later that I came to realise that actually, neither of them was happy. Tallboy was 'putting up with' my behaviour because he was scared of losing me. It was a shock to realise that, apparently, I had been the one holding him to ransom. That he'd been making arbitrary rules as a means to try and keep some sort of control, and it was a shock when I found out just how scared he was of other people thinking him a 'cuckold'. It still makes my chest tighten a bit to think about it. Busybee... well, he's still something of a mystery. To me, to Duchess, and I suspect to himself. I still can't help having both warm and wistful thoughts about both of them, but they're not major parts in my life any more.
So why am I thinking about things so far in the past, and so painful? Because over the last few weeks, the last few months, I've started finally to realise what an excellent job those two men (and, admittedly, a previously monogamist-centred upbringing) did of making me feel bad about myself, just by being the way they were, and because I'm starting to realise just how much I'd actually internalised those views, how much I felt I was a dirty guilty secret, something to be hidden and sneaked in and out of places. Something to be ashamed of.
It's taken the best part of a year, and three lovely people to make me realise first that I'd felt that way, and that it was wrong. Don't get me wrong, I've never *felt* that what I did was dirty and should be hidden away, but I had learned that other people didn't think the same way. That I couldn't trust my feelings on this.
When I first played with Miss Sunshine and her husband, I asked her if she minded my mentioning it in my blog, knowing that people we both know would read it. I expected her to say no, and was literally shocked by the fact that she didn't. I was awed and humbled by her relaxed attitude to it - we had been friends a long time, and she could see no problem with being associated with me. This is a lady who is happily, and monogamously married, and from a religious, if open minded background. A woman whom I love and respect. This beautiful woman was happy for people to know that we were connected in that way, and her husband too.
Then there's Nice Guy, who has been beautiful all the way through, despite not being 'poly', just fair and open minded. While his friends were telling him he was crazy to be in an open relationship, he backed me up, even if he wasn't entirely sure of things himself. He's made me feel all kinds of things, but dirty isn't one of them. Amazingly, he's even told his mother about our relationship as well, and apparently she likes me anyway. I wish I wasn't so surprised, as in an ideal world everyone would be as open minded, but I keep smacking against the walls of my well-worn cynicism. Parents are on the list of people you just don't tell about this sort of thing, according to everything I've been taught by society, by friends, and by my older loves.
The thing that brought it home to me finally, was going to two parties last weekend, first with NG to a friend's engagement party, and with Mountain to a birthday brunch for one of his friends, and neither of them is trying to pretend that we don't know each other, that we're platonic friends, or that we're really a monogamous couple, we just are what we are.
That we could do that, without the world collapsing into dust, and without anybody looking upset, or shocked, or angry. It felt good. It made me want to cry for all the stuff I've come through to get here. It made me feel humble, that there are people I love and admire who are happy to be seen with me that way. It made me feel that tiny timid hope, that maybe things really could be how I naively imagined them to be, back when I started writing.
It felt like coming home.
posted by Miss Scarlet at 4:10 am
5 comments
