I want to hate him Guest post by Bayanni

I do. I really want to hate him for the pain he has caused.
Or her. I want to hate her. Really though, it’s not her fault, and she seems nice enough.

Recently, my relationship with Abe came to an end. Apparently, his primary, who we will call Annie, was feeling threatened and intimidated by me. I don’t know HOW, as I am a married woman and could never give him more than I was already doing. He was never going to leave her for me, in fact, he was always going to leave me for her. I knew it, I did. From day one, we were very clear that she was primary, I was not. This was fine with me, since I have my own primary. Then the distancing started. He replied to fewer messages, called less, spent less time with me. Then I was relegated to post derby booty call.
I could see the writing on the wall, but he kept insisting that all was well. Then I became comfortable in the relationship again. I let myself believe that everything was okay. We were talking again, spending time together.

I had expressed an interest in meeting Annie to Abe, and he told me that he would bring it up with her to see what she thought. We had never met, but I knew quite a lot about her from Abe. He told me quite a bit about her, and her situation. She was his high school crush, the “one that got away” as it were. (Oddly like Kasini and Myr in a strange effed up way) She had recently left her husband who was apparently NOT an upstanding gentleman. I wanted to meet her. I thought it would be easier to share with this woman if we knew each other. It is easier for me knowing and loving Kasini. I had thought it would be easier for me to relax and enjoy the relationship while it lasted if I knew her. That way, she would cease to be the supermodel and amazing lover my brain had convinced me that she was. I thought it would be easier for her if she knew that I wasn’t going to fight her for him.

Then he told me she wasn’t happy with poly anymore. She wanted to be exclusive. He said that he told her he wasn’t going to be exclusive until her divorce was final. That’s all well and good, but I can’t maintain a relationship that is already dead. I can’t pretend like we’re okay when in fact, we’re done.  I care for him, and couldn’t face months of a relationship that is already over.

I over reacted. In hind sight, I know now that several environmental stresses converged on me at this precise moment, making this the absolute last thing I could tolerate. I was upset by the impending breakup. I calmly (okay, I was crying in the bathroom, don’t judge) sent a text asking that if breaking up with me was what Annie needed from him, I needed it to be sooner, rather than later and I requested that he talk to me in person about it. I then spent the rest of the day trying not to freak out. I cried when I came home. I told Myr what was happening. You all know how he reacted. Bless his heart, he tried SO hard to be supportive, but I still believe that a part of him was relieved it was over for Abe and me.

Abe and I have since had a few private conversations, where we were able to discuss what this breakup meant, and why he chose to do it when he did. He was running himself ragged trying to keep up with all three girls. He had intended to wait until Annie’s divorce was final before breaking it off with me, but decided not to string me along as I was clearly more involved than he had realized. He was concerned that my relationship with him was creating stress for Myr and me, as the two of us had been tense lately. (This was NOT related to Abe in any way, we have other stress like every couple.)  We have remained friends. He still wants to help me work on my skating skills, and study for the referee exam. He tries to tell me that the only thing that has changed is that we are no longer intimate.  I don’t know if I believe him.

I can’t hate him, because he was right to make this choice. This was the first truly rational and adult decision he has made in the time we were together. So, I want to hate him, but I continue to love him. I can’t face her yet. Can’t deal with her. Apparently, she saw me the night of the big breakup, could see that I was upset. Didn’t know who I was or why I was upset, but wanted to help. She saw the whole breakup happen before she realized who I was and was genuinely sorry to see me cry. Really? Why can’t she be a raving beast? Why can’t I hate her?

Sometimes I feel like a Christmas toy. No really, go with me here. In the beginning, he wanted to play with me all the time. Then he put me away for a while, things became busy for him, and I was less demanding than the other ladies, so I got less of his time. I became his post derby booty call. He took me off the shelf once every couple of weeks, played with me, then put me away again. Now, we still talk, but it always seems to be on his terms. Some days, we are great friends, and it seems our relationship is better than it ever was when we were dating. Other days, I want to punch him in the face.

Sometimes polyamory sucks. We fall in love, and then get hurt.

Was he worth it? Yes. I am a better person for having known him, and will maintain a close relationship with him. We’re just not intimate anymore. He is aware that I will not be seeking another relationship anytime soon. I wasn’t looking for one when I found him.
It was one HOT summer, and I will cherish every moment, even the painful ones.

A different side of the story…Part two–guest post by Bayani

I guess I should go ahead and finish my story of confusion, attraction, and self examination.

After Abe and I had our little makeout session at his house, he went out of town for almost a full week. This gave me a lot of time to think about what it was that made me panic and whether or not I could go through with more.

After Abe came home from his vacation, we planned to meet up again. This time, I knew what I wanted, how far I could go, and was ready to accept the consequences. When I left the house, Myrddwyn stopped me and stuffed a condom in my pocket. Does that seem strange?  A man gives his wife a condom on her way out the door for a date with another man. Strange, yes. Polyamory is strange sometimes.

We didn’t have any concrete plans, again, because we are lame and just don’t make plans well. I met him at his house, took one look at his exhausted self, and decided that he’d be no fun if we went anywhere. We decided to stay in again. We went upstairs again, with the pretense of looking for a movie to watch. Through some unspoken mutual decision, we skipped that part and commenced with the kissing. I will keep the details to myself. I imagine that Myr doesn’t want the details, and none of y’all other readers need to know anyway. All I can say is that it was terrifying, exciting, and wonderful. I got the feeling that Abe was waiting for me to freak out and stop again, but I didn’t.

I came home late that night, and Myr was waiting with fifty million questions. He processes things by gathering every piece of information possible and then rolling it around in his mind. This would have been fine, except I hadn’t finished processing it myself.  I process things slowly, and all in my own mind. It takes me a little while to decide how I feel about most things. I use my emotions and intuition where Myr uses logic and reason. I was still riding the waves of emotion that come from intimacy, especially the first time with a new partner. Myr quizzed me about details that I wasn’t emotionally ready to answer. This is where the *minor* tiff came in. I downplayed a few differences between Abe and Myr. Some anatomical, some techique-related.  I KNOW Myr doesn’t like to be lied to. I still don’t feel like I lied. In all reality, what sane person….okay, let me start this question over…   Who would know how to respond to the question “So is he bigger than me?” when she hadn’t finished processing the fact that she has just slept with the first non-husband man in over 18 years? I admit. I responded with a not-the-whole-truth answer. I responded in the same way a man, when cornered by a wife, responds to the question “does this dress make my ass look fat?”  I was honest, but didn’t give all the facts. Myr got upset. This whole deal has been dealt with in a previous post. I felt a little attacked at the time, and was trying to be reassuring and honest, while letting Myr know that I still wanted to be with him, and still trying desperately to process this HUGE moment in my life. I understood his need for reassurance. I really did, and still do.

Since that day, I have always told Myr the total, brutal truth when he asks me questions. I don’t volunteer information, I don’t see the need to do that. I know more about his trysts with Kasini than he knows about mine, mostly because I read these posts too. if he asks a question, he gets an answer. Occasionally, he regrets asking that question. Sometimes we don’t really want to know the answer. Just like sometimes I regret reading these posts, especially when I get a couple of them in a row that are intense. These are the things we deal with as a polyamorous couple. There is still jealousy. We just know how to deal with it.

On top of all that drama, Abe got me sick that day. He didn’t KNOW that he’d brought home what has now been dubbed “the Vegas Plague”. He didn’t realize that the symptoms that seemed like normal allergies to him would knock me flat for two weeks. He didn’t know that I would then pass it to Fanny, and my daughters, and Myr, and a couple of my co-workers, making me feel  a little like Typhoid Mary. I have since made him feel sufficiently bad for that.

And so the drama continues. The aftershocks of this “affair” are just starting to hit the rest of my life, and I may post at a later date about what it has meant for Abe and me in our other circle of friends.

A different side of things…PART ONE–guest post by Bayani

So Everyone knows who I am, right? I am the ever-loved wife of the long-suffering Myrddwyn.

Here’s my two cents about sleeping with another man. I had never really seriously considered having sex with a man that was not Myr before meeting Abernathy. We had talked about it in the past, joking about Tiberius and Alexander, but I had never been serious about considering it before. For some reason, I was very attracted to Abe, and told Myr as much.  I was experiencing what Myr likes to call my “on week” when I am pretty much sex crazed. I went out on a few platonic dates with Abe during this time and he seemed every bit as interested in me. I had made the decision that I was not going to revoke my OPP during this time, since I didn’t want to have this very large decision made by my hormones.
I spent some time thinking and talking with Myr. At the end of the “on week” I made the decision that I wanted to suspend the OPP, and see where the relationship with Abe went. It took a lot more than just talking to Myr. I was very torn. Did I want to continue being able to say I haven’t slept with another man since Myrddwyn? Was that an outdated expectation? What did this very large step into full fledged polyamory mean for me as an individual as well as us as a couple? I agonized over this decision. I started a journal just so that I could write down my thoughts in an effort to get them straight.

There’s the background.