The Turbulence of Monogamy

Okay, I’m trying to figure this out. I don’t understand why I keep running into these walls. The bubble that I live in apparently hasn’t been burst, because I’m always so surprised when something shocking happens and I just can’t wrap my mind around the reason. Every time I think I’m free to roam about the cabin, we hit a pocket of monogamous turbulence, where everything from the overhead compartments shift and you’re slightly afraid to get that pillow you so desperately needed. I keep hearing and understanding that I’m free to enjoy the fruits from the tree, that I’m not limited to the ones on the ground, that I can be who I am and I am able to allow those around me to be who they are. Imagining a moment in the sound of music where I’m spinning around in a large field of beautiful plush shiny green grass only to spin into a wall of fake clouds and harmonized chirping birds. To only realize that I’m still limited, that this pipe dream of honesty is a maze: one-sided, loopy, cloaked, and disguised in lies!

So, I meet this guy at one of the lifestyle parties on my way out the door. There was a brief intro conversation and numbers where exchanged. Fast forward, we’ve chatted for months, haven’t really put time aside to actually go on a date, but both of us seemed to be good for the time being with talking and getting to know one another. It was early on in the phone relationship where he asked if I would be his co-pilot on a trip to DC. I told him if we spent time outside of the phone and really got comfortable with one another, maybe. As the time went on that never came back up. So let’s get to the nitty-gritty! This morning I received a text asking if I was up. Just so happened I was, and out and about, told him yes, he called a few seconds later. After our hellos and how do you dos, he tells me he’s on the road to DC. That is a long drive; you’re not driving it alone, are you? Yes, I am. That is a long lonely drive for one person. Yeah and I’m sleepy now. Well lets talk about stuff, so how was your week? Rough!!! Why is that? Well, I have this family emergency and my job is messing with my money and I don’t know how I’m going to make it back. Damn that sucks; well I’m sure you will figure it out. We continued talking about nothing until I made it home. During the call he put me on hold several times, even thought I heard a voice coming from inside his car, but I thought nothing of it, one it wasn’t important and two, he said it was just him. Thinking back on our early conversations, I believe that this trip was the same one he had invited me on, (didn’t realize this until later). Anyway, I’m home now and extremely sleepy after a wonderful orgasm laid by the tongue god. So I lived in that moment, and got under the covers and was sound asleep. When I woke, my other half told me of a Facebook status update on one of our lifestyle friends’ page. It stated “excited to be on this trip to Maryland with xxx”. I am instantly floored! I can not believe my ears, I had to see this status update, I had to make sure what he had just told me was real. There it was, in black and white; it was true. This guy, who has nothing to gain by not being honest, had just lost whatever might have been. I didn’t understand the lie, the secret, or the unnecessary story he would now have to remember and stick to in future discussions.

I suppose I need to clarify my position. I by no means, have an issue with him taking someone with him. My repulsion is the pointless lie. I haven’t swayed from the person I was when we first met or the first phone conversations we’ve had. We’ve talked about other partners, possible triad relations, past relationships and future endeavors. Even bumped into him at a LS party and hugged him and the women he was with, she was a cutie! Here we are just at the cusp of the discussion of a potential ploy relationship and you already feel like there’s a need to lie and deceive. Here we are, at the base of my current confusion, in this “open” world of many possibilities of sharing love with one another and not having to be limited by the four walls of monogamy, that I stand and face the same reflection of a world I thought I left far behind.

I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND!

Someone, please explain what is really going on. I mean, I’m not one of those girls that need to be lied to, to feel special, important or number one. I’m really just trying to enjoy life and hope you can enjoy it with me. I’m not asking anything of you other than to be yourself and give me honesty. Maybe, I’m asking for too much!!!

As much as I love a warm, blood filled rod, I think I’ll have to take it room temperature and detachable … hanging up my dancing shoes!

If you want to call it cheating …

What the What?! What kind of foolishness is this garbage?

Let’s Define Cheating:
Urban Dictionary– When one person has a significant other and performs any type of intimate acts with another person.
Webster– to be sexually unfaithful (there were many more, but this one will do).
Choc swirl– you have chosen to spend intimate time with someone that isn’t your partner, be it mental, emotional, or sexual intimacy. A rule of thumb, if you can’t tell your partner about this person, you’re most likely CHEATING!

Now, moving on!

Anything that remotely sounds like this you should run away quickly and don’t look back, you may turn to salt. Okay, that’s a bit much!

So, are you single? Well, no. Okay, you are in an open, poly or swinging relationship? Ah, no. So … would she be okay with finding out about me? Probably not, but who knows what she’s doing!

It was great chatting with you, we should exchange numbers! Okay, what’s yours? Oh, well give me yours and I’ll text you. Okay, so is there a problem? Well, no, just that you can only text or call at a certain time. Oh, so you’re married? Umm, yes. Oh okay, so y’all are open? Well, my side is.

Hey, why don’t I come over this weekend with a movie and dinner? So, that’s going to be a problem. Why is that? I’m attached.

Hey, what are you up to? Oh, nothing much, you? Just was wondering if we can hang. Sure, your place. Naw, lets get a room. Aren’t you single? Yes. Hmmm, okay.

This is funny, but so very sad. I can’t remember the last time I actually met someone that was truly the definition of single: single. It saddens my heart to no end, I’m being straight forward and honesty with you about who I am, and my attachments, but you can’t seem to acknowledge yours! Give me the opportunity to decide if I want to jump on your train, pulling your many cars.

So yes, you can call it what you will, but I call it cheating!

Talk your way out of the pussy!

Found a beautiful cock on one of the sites I like to perv on. The cock had placed an ad which stated: Searching for a discrete lady that likes their vagina massage and stroked slow in the Atlanta area. Sooooo, I’m in the Atlanta area, I like my vagina massaged and stroked slowly,  I sent an email. I described what I was looking for and attached pictures of what I looked like and what I had to offer.

He responded! We exchanged numbers and we quickly move to scheduling time to meet in a neutral midpoint location. Something went wrong, turned ugly within the first 35 minutes of the conversation. He stated that my current situation was weird and quite strange and if I still wanted to see other people and be out there doing my thing then what’s the purpose of being in a relationship. He goes on to say that if I was his woman, he wouldn’t allow it and that its just crazy. I explain to him that this relationship or situation as he put it, isn’t for everyone and he had a right to his opinion. I explain to him that I had tried the the married and committed relationship where people lie about what they are doing and with whom they are doing it with. I explain to him I would prefer to know what I’m getting into before I commit and expect that I’m going to be all you need. He tells me that it’s not normal to do what we are doing and that’s just not right and aren’t you concerned about diseases?  I followed that with, I’m aware of what’s out there, that’s why I protect myself and see my doctor every 6 months, what about you?  You are in some form of relationship, right? Yes! So does she know? No! So, how do you justify your actions? Are you okay with her doing the same?

Well she’s not as sexual as she use to be. Well, why be with her, move on. She’s a good woman. So why not talk to her and work something out? Let’s not talk about her. So your cool if she wanted to do the same? No, not at all. So….? You want to school me on the dangers of an open lifestyle but you aren’t even open to talk about yours, which is obviously broken?

Needless to say, this meet didn’t happen.

It’s sad to state that I meet more of these types of guys than those with open minds. This is just one instance of many. Some follow a different pattern but they all end in the same manner. Some state that it’s not for them, but when and if I’m ready to cheat, to hit them up. Others state that the relationship won’t last and when it ends, hit them up. While some stick around for conversation then disappear for months to a year to finally email me reminding me who they are and asking if I’m still in that relationship/situation thing. They all seem to be shocked to find out that I am and we are still swirling and open.

I snapped (back)

It’s never pretty when you lose control. Even if it’s brief, it exposes a raw side of you that you generally want to keep suppressed and concealed from the outside world.  But I snapped.  We were staying with her friend / play partner last weekend on our road trip.  They had already played many times, spent the night together in his bedroom while I slept in the other, etc.  I was fine.  Well honestly a little grumpy, but not angry or sad.  My confusion started because she had asked me a week or so earlier if I would be comfortable with her flying up here to start spending weekends with this man, but yet when we arrived and he asked if she was spending the whole weekend, she didn’t seem at all enthused about the idea.  Was it because I was here with her that she didn’t jump at the idea of extending our stay for the whole weekend?  That was the only guess I had.  Then Saturday after a big lunch and too many carbs, she and I laid down for a nap while he was gone doing some personal errands.  I was extra sleepy because somewhere along the way I picked up a sniffle in NY, so when she got up to watch tv in the other room I rolled over and got some more rest.  I woke up a bit later and I could tell he had gotten home, they were watching tv together and chatting in the living room.  I nodded off again and this time when I woke up, the tv was blasting from the other room.  I couldn’t take the noise so I got up to check on it and the room was empty, the bedroom door closed.  Not a shocker.  I turned down the tv to a reasonable volume and grabbed a water out of his fridge and by the time I made the 20 foot walk back to the guest room (it’s a tiny 2 bedroom apt, not a mansion), they both came busting out of the bedroom.  He plopped quickly down in his chair in front of the tv and she dashed naked into the hall bathroom.

And I snapped.

My synapses made the instantaneous connection between me turning down the tv (alerting them that I had woken up) and them rushing out of the room like two little kids caught doing something they had no business doing.  My mind put those two things together and it immediately blared out the question inside my head … “What could they have possibly have been doing that they felt the need to hide from me?”.  Quickly followed by a statement “more secrets”.I snapped.  Flashbacks took over my vision and instead of seeing red, I saw her previous actions and secrets and lies all played back in a quick montage that left me reeling.  I can only compare it to the experience people describe as seeing your life pass before your eyes, but in this case not my life but all the pain of the past year.  After all we have been through and here we are spending two nights in another city with your lover and yet you two feel the need to shut the door every time you do something (like I wouldn’t know what was happening) and now even the closed door apparently wasn’t providing you a significant enough level of secrecy, whatever was happening had to be done with me asleep.

So I snapped.Nothing violent, no lashing out.  I simply grabbed my keys, put on my shoes and went to kiss her goodbye.  She was shocked, asked where I was going, and I told her I was going to give them the private time they obviously want and need so they don’t have to feel the need to dash out and put on a show for me.  She protested.  Told me not to go.  Told me they had just been fucking and had finished which is why they happened to come out at that moment.  But I don’t believe in coincidence.  I can’t accept the fact that they had three hours alone while I slept and within a minute of them knowing I was awake they just happened to dash out of the room.  Too many times with her previous lover she played off coincidences which later turned out to be lies.So I left them there.  Whatever they felt the need to conceal from me they were free to indulge themselves in without me there to interrupt.  But then the text messages began.  Pleas to return, promises that there was nothing being concealed, disbelief that I flew off like I did.  I rode around a strange city, wandering while my mind tried to work itself out and my heart tried to pull on an even deeper reserve of love.  Finally she asked me to come back and get her, at least let’s have this conversation in person instead of over text.  So I found my way back to his place, picked her up, and we spent hours in the parking lot of a convenience store talking about the night, our lives, our joys and pain and all we had lost that would never be regained.  The trust. The excitement of our lives together and our adventures, sexual and otherwise.  Everything now is tainted.  I didn’t realize all of me that had been lost until she pointed out those things she hadn’t seen in me for months now.  The happiness that used to flow from me, the look on my face at seeing her, showing the love that filled me to overflowing, all for her.  After a life of hiding my authentic self in one miserable failed relationship after another, I had found someone I could be myself with.  She was that person who saw all of me and loved me for who I was and not what I could promise to become or who she could change me into.  Our imperfections made us fit perfectly together.

But now I doubt.  I don’t know what’s real anymore.  When she tells me they weren’t doing anything they needed to hide and she wouldn’t hurt me and she’s being honest … I want to believe and accept what she is saying at face value, but she said all of that to me word for word a few months ago while looking in my eyes like she is now, and every word was a well crafted lie.  She showed no hesitation lying to my face with a smile on hers when she was trying to protect the secrets only she and her love shared, so how do I now believe the words and the promises from that same mouth?  What is different?  What has changed?  She still can’t give me any insight into why she felt the need to lie to me and keep her feelings, actions and love hidden from me for all those months.  Can’t tell me why she would lie to me so many times in the last few months about everything to do with him.  Lie to me while I’m in front of her begging for honesty, willing to forgive the past for the hope of our future if she can just pull us out of our tailspin and get us back to the open communication and honesty that we based our relationship on.  So if I can’t know why she would lie then, how can I ever hope to accept that she is not lying now?

So we talk for hours.  Standing in front of a store in a strange city until 1 am.  We talk and we cry and we both ask the question of how do we get back what we’ve lost. And we both have the same answer. We can’t.  We will never have what we did for four and a half years.  We will never share a love untainted by lies and deceit.  So is what we have left enough?  Can we limp this broken and bleeding (she added infected) relationship along for the rest of our lives?  Me not trusting her and her not wanting to keep talking about what happened because she doesn’t feel it will solve anything.  We go back to his place and eat some leftovers and get some sleep for the road trip home in the morning.  She sleeps in the guest room with me instead of with him, not because she wants to necessarily, but because he is already in bed when we return and when she goes in to see him, he doesn’t offer his bed to her.The next morning is strained.  Neither of us slept very well and we have almost ten hours in the car together today to make it home.  After quick showers and a goodbye to her friend (somewhat strained for me after last night’s incident and not knowing what she may have shared with him about why I left suddenly), we grabbed breakfast and got on the road.  The beginning of the trip was quiet, she slept while I drove and when she took over, I dozed myself.  It wasn’t until we were about three hours from home that we broke the silence that had been with us since breakfast.  I had been writing this blog on my phone, and when I got to what felt like the ending (not just of the blog, but potentially of our relationship), I simply couldn’t let that be the close.

That was two paragraphs earlier, when I posed the question, “how can I ever hope to accept that she is not lying now?”  So I posed it.  I shared with her where my mind was after last night and I told her that I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel, but I needed her help.  I needed to understand what else I could have done this weekend to prevent the downward spiral.  What followed was a long conversation that took us the last few hours home to Atlanta and then kept going for several more hours once we unpacked the car.  I came away with insights for myself into what I could have done, no, should have done that night to make things different.  Rather than internalize my doubts over her seeming flip-flop on wanting to stay weekends with her lover, I should have taken her aside and asked why.  Then she could have told me she hadn’t decided that was something she really wanted to do, she had simply been asking to gauge my response and get an understanding for how much I had healed from the wounds left by her last lover.  I could also have told her I was bothered by the door being shut every time they went into his room or the fact that they acted like they barely knew one another in the living room, but would then slip in his bedroom and play for hours at a time with the door closed.  Or I could have asked her the first morning, after she shared his bed most of the evening and all night, why she wouldn’t come to me the next morning and feed me her swollen pussy.  But instead, I kept all of these thoughts inside and doing so put me on edge, so that when they just happened to come out of the room after I woke up, I was already poised to snap.  I realized that I have developed a pattern of holding in as much concern and frustration as I can until I reach a boiling point and I made a commitment to begin speaking my mind immediately rather than letting my questions, anger and frustrations build up.  As we continued our discussion, she realized that she had developed a similar pattern of holding back information, but for different reasons.  In her case, she was reluctant to share information when she didn’t have her own time to mull something over and look at it from every angle.  In many cases this prevented her from sharing things with me at all because she would come up with disastrous scenarios where telling me caused a terrible reaction, where she waited too long so that telling me now seemed like she had been holding out or where she just waited too long and forgot.  The problem with all of these was that I was in the dark.  Whether it was intentional or not on her part, I ended up not knowing what she was doing, thinking and most importantly feeling.  As we talked through what had happened over the weekend, she began to reveal in greater detail some of the things that she and her lover had done and more importantly to me, some of the things they had discussed behind that closed door.  These were all things she hadn’t told me the day before.  Things she had either deemed not important enough to share or things she wasn’t sure how to take herself so she kept them to herself, but sharing them had a dual effect.  For me, it gave me a sense of comfort that she was sharing her heart and mind with me, finally.  For her, it gave her a sounding board so that she could get my viewpoint on those things she wasn’t sure of herself and we could talk them through.

And I didn’t snap.

She realized that the reality of sharing things with me when they happen, raw and unfiltered / unedited wasn’t the train wreck she was afraid it would be.  I didn’t overreact when I found out that he asked her in the midst of sex if it was “more than just sex” for her.  Nor did I explode when she told me she had to pause and she couldn’t answer him directly one way or the other because she wasn’t sure herself.  She realized what I had known for some time now … that allowing me inside her shell didn’t mean she was exposed, it meant that she and I were both protected.  We were able to talk through the night and morning at a different level than we had in some time, maybe different than we ever had before.  We both felt that we had made progress and we were closer than we had been in many months.

Had we snapped … back?  I certainly hope so.

We sealed our mental and emotional breakthrough with intimacy.  That too had been missing.  We’ve had sex, but it’s been irregular and the barriers that have built up over the last nine months are there in bed with us most days, but not this time.  We enjoy one another fully that morning and again and again over the next few days.

We aren’t back to what we were and as we both agreed that Saturday night, we never will be.  But for the first time in nine months I can hope that we may find our way back to something that will make us both happy, maybe even something more than what we had before.

Finished?

My past hiccups, mistakes, and just plain lies are really hanging over my head. It’s only been a short while since the explorations of truth, but I really don’t think things will ever be like they were.   As much as I know that blinking my eyes won’t change what has happened and put us back the way we were I can’t help but to keep blinking.

 

I’ve been trying to write this blog for almost a month now and I still can’t finish it. Finishing it might mean it’s the end of us.

Path unknown

As our relationship continues down a path that neither of us understands, or aware of its direction, I can’t help but to wonder if this is our life going forward. I can’t turn back the hands of time to the day before I met the man that I allowed to  flip our world upside down. I don’t know how to fix what I’ve broken! I don’t know how to rebuild the lost trust, I don’t know how to be overly communicative, I don’t know what I’m suppose to do now. It’s hard for me to communicate, I don’t like harping on the the same thing over and over, it just feels like unnecessary stress. From what I’ve read and what we’ve read together, the way to get past cheating, loss of trust, and lies is to be open in everything you do. To dot every “i” and cross every “t,” but for some reason I find this hard. Not that I’m trying to hide anything or trying to do me, it seems so small and meaningless, just so insignificant, a waste of time I guess to share every tidbit.

I find myself feeling like a 5 yr old being reprimanded by a parent when I forgot or get sidetracked on checking in when I go on a meet and greet. The crazy thing about this is, it’s been one of our safely rules since day one. I can’t understand why I can’t seem to remember to check-in. It’s not like I forget every time, it’s when I’m rushing and late to meet this other person. It’s not like I think this person is more important, it’s just that I feel bad because I’m late, and I’m over apologizing for my tardiness, finding myself checked-out, until the meet and greet is over if it’s a quick one or five minutes into the greet.  He’s great about checking in. From the time he leaves the house to where ever he’s meeting the other person. He checks in throughout the greet and when it’s over if he’s headed home and going to their place.

Does he care more for me than I for him? I don’ t know what it is, but I do know I don’t want to lose him and so far, I haven’t proven that. I find myself always asking for forgiveness for something I failed to mention or being out of pocket too long. I find that I’m always feeling bad when I go out or have someone over. I’ve done something that wasn’t apart of the rules or just plain ole’ fuck the rules conduct.  I can’t figure the crazy ass-backward behavior. We don’t have many rules, matter-of-fact we can count them on one hand, that’s how few we have. No matter what I come up with to ask for another chance to get it right, it seems that the request are accepted belligerently, like a side eye looking and waiting for the next oversight.

Looking at it with a different perspective than my own selfish one, I can see things from his tower. Most of the times when I’ve heard what he had to say with his great use of examples of past incidences, I can see where he’s coming from, I don’t like it, but I understand it. Understanding them from his eyes, I see the reason for pause, caution and concern. But my missteps are not out of malice or deceit, it’s more of the absent mindedness,  loss of thought, and short-attention-span theater. It’s not loss of love, care, and concern, just me.

I’m hoping that there is more forgiveness than resentment, I’m hoping that one day, this will be nothing but a story to pass on to the newbies of what not to do. Here’s hoping that I get it together sooner, rather then later.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression

And in the lifestyle, sometimes you don’t even get a first chance.  Your first impression is made for you by the partner who brings you into their relationship.  I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that for me, if that first impression is around some shady shit … a lie, a secret, a broken rule or anything odd or mysterious … my opinion will be forever tainted.  The funny thing is, I don’t think I have ever been wrong when this happens.  Why?  Because if your partner decides to conveniently forget a couple of the rules of your relationship or gets temporary amnesia about how things have worked for years … well that seems to have been a pretty good indicator of problems to come.  Those things don’t just happen, they happen for a reason.  Either your partner or your partner’s partner feels like they have something to hide, something they want to keep from you … and if it’s something that YOUR partner feels strong enough about that she is willing to omit the truth or flat out lie to you … then it’s something that should be the cause for a great deal of concern.

Fortunately, that has only happened a few times in our relationship.  But when it has happened it is always a signpost on the road to a problem.  At the end of the day, any relationship is about communication and honesty and trust for one another.  I believe that an open relationship has to be even more secure in those three things than a monogamous relationship.  When you look at it from the outside in, many of the lies and breakdowns in communication in monogamous relationships happen because of some sort of outside ‘relationship’.  It doesn’t have to be sexual, it can just as easily be emotional, mental or even spiritual.  Whatever the case, you feel you can’t tell your partner about it so you find yourself hiding things, omitting or lying to keep both your relationships intact.  That’s the beauty of an open relationship … or at least it is on the surface.  You should not have to hide those things or tell those lies any more.  You should be free to enjoy BOTH or ALL of your relationships and in fact they should all be made richer and more rewarding because you don’t have to hide them, but rather you can share them with your partner(s) and in fact the world if you chose to do so!

So at the end of the day, if you are hiding anything from your partner in an open relationship, you are not in an open relationship at all … you’re just in a slightly less restrictive lying, cheating ‘monogamous’ relationship.

Watching out for the riptide

Can we ever truly understand another person’s motives? Is it possible to ever be inside someone else’s head? I never worried about those things very much. It was always enough to hear the motives from her lips, to get the understanding that she was willing or able to share.  But those things aren’t enough anymore. These days I want more, I need more.  It’s unfortunate, but what was enough in the past to satisfy me is no longer enough to keep my doubts at bay or keep my suspicions from swirling around in my stomach.

So now I question everything.  Even if I don’t question it out loud, I question it within.  Every text, every email, every phone call, every date.  I wonder about the actions themselves, but much more than that I wonder about the motives beneath the surface.  After all, this is an OPEN relationship … a phone call, text, email or even a date with someone else should not be a cause for concern.  But it’s about the endgame now, it’s about the motives and the (hidden) agendas and desires.  As with the last serious side relationship she had, I am left wondering if there are currents flowing beneath the surface that I can’t see or feel.  It’s the irrational (or perhaps rational) fear of that hidden and deadly riptide waiting for you beneath the calm surface of the water.  And like that riptide, you are usually in it and in deep, deep trouble before you realize it.  So the question I keep asking myself is how do I avoid the riptide but still allow myself to enjoy the water?  I can’t stand on the beach every day looking out to the sea and wishing I could swim, well I can … but why come to the sea and be afraid to do more than dip in a toe?

So the questions come, unbidden.  This latest man she’s been talking to for a few months now, even while she had been living in the secrets of her last love.  How do I come to terms with this latest “friend”?  How does he fit into her world?  He isn’t the norm, at least not the norm that I came to understand the first four years of our relationship.  That norm was about sexual attraction, desire and ultimately satisfaction.  It was about the big dicks and the great stamina and if it was the best of all worlds, the unrestrained aggression in the bedroom.  But that doesn’t seem to apply any more.  This she has been communicating with for months and yet, his dick isn’t large and from the one and only time they did have sex, there wasn’t any indication of him being aggressive or having tons of stamina and the summary I got from her was that the sex was “ok, it wasn’t bad”.  Now sex that was “ok, not bad” in my book doesn’t warrant ‘the chase’.  At least not for months.  It doesn’t make someone overlook being stood up for dinner, for dates and for sex.  It doesn’t make for a ‘relationship’ with that person that involves constant communication, that drives you to hit them up almost every day, some days your first action after waking.  Especially not in the aftermath of the disastrous storm that blew through our lives the last time you made someone else your first and last thought every day.  Sex that was “ok, not bad” wouldn’t make me question my partner if he looks at my phone and it wouldn’t prompt me to ask “are you looking back through what (he and I) talked about”?  Not if the trust in our relationship was already shattered by the last set of secrets and lies.  If anything, in the wake of that debacle, I would think that being overly up front about any and all communication with someone else would be the norm rather than a cause for you to look at me sideways.  If sex “ok, not bad” isn’t the answer, what is?

So I wonder.  I look out on the water as I stand vulnerable and alone on this beach.  I look out and I wonder if the calm waters are just that or if they mask another deadly riptide.  And as anyone who has been caught in a riptide can tell you, getting out of one and making it back to shore safely is not impossible, but it is difficult and very exhausting … so to be caught in another riptide after not having recovered from the last would likely be something unrecoverable.

Craving the Chaos

The questions continue to take over my thoughts lurking in the recesses of my mind, waiting for that moment when I’m alone and open to the demands of each of them.

What in truth where you hoping for? What had he said to you to make you lose your everlasting mind? What was your issue? Why weren’t you honest?

Thinking back to those grueling months of my relationship flipping on its head, I can’t seem to believe that I wanted nothing but the pure intoxication of those shared moments. There had to be more, so I let the questions overflow my thoughts, I let them saturate my mind, and this is what came out.

My relationship with my better-half was effortless. We didn’t have many arguments, fights, or disagreements. It was an easy-going, very laid back relationship. Every now and then, there was a little tiff, mostly because of an outside source. I enjoyed the peace, my marriage was full of dysfunction and disagreements and fights, so this was very much welcomed. It had been four years of this “perfect” relationship with no real problems or miscommunications, with promises of more years to come. We had become very predictable, very old, stale, and boring.

This new thing seemed to bring a spark into our relationship, it was the fire we needed to get us out of our normal. To bring some form of different into our world, no matter the outcome of its presence. I was feeding (unaware) off the chaos. It was bringing life into my current Zen state. My heart raced every time I would schedule a play date. It was the roller-coaster I missed, the crazy my world needed. It was something else. The strange thing about this whole thing, was I hated it in my marriage. Everyday was a struggle to get along, to understand one another, to simply be. It seemed like the worst experience of my life. Who knew, later in life that it would be something I craved, desired, almost needed? I definitely didn’t! But there was more to this crazy!

I wanted to know that my playmate wanted me as much as I him. I wanted to know that I was in his heart, that he would be willing to do whatever it took for the three of us to work this out for the better. I was willing to deal with his baggage, there really was nothing left to find out or to stumble on. So, the rest seemed easy, that the yellow brick road would lead us to the Emerald City with no more flying monkeys or green witches trying to take my shoes. It would be an easy haul from there in. Everyone in my world would be happy and floating on cloud nine.

That bubble was popped, silly girl! Nothing ever works that way. Nothing works the way we imagine, there are too many variables, to many outside forces. Just too much of everything.

In retrospect, I hate that we had to go through this, but I think it was something we needed to experience, something we needed to learn. I hope that the love my better half has for me continues to be true and earnest and that he will continue to be him, always. I Love him so much and I hate everyday that I took him through this. I believe I learned from this, but I still have some work to do on self, but until my complete perfection, I’ll be…

 

CS

 

Just beneath the surface

You never know what is lurking just below the calm surface of the water.  The same could be said for the surface of my mind, my emotions.  I would have told you I was adapting to this new life, becoming oriented in this strange new land I’m living in after the fallout over the secrets and the lies that broke the very foundation of our relationship.  I thought at least I knew where the biggest cracks were and how to step around them.  But you just never know!

Today was case in point.  Some nobody, one of the dozens of guys in the ragtag army of potential suitors that is always nipping at her ankles called her out of the blue.  Now they have never met, in part because this guy has decided he wants things his way.  He has refused to send her a clear face picture, wanting her to webcam with him instead.  He was also invited out to meet-and-greet her a week or so ago, but refused once he found out that I would be there as well.  At that time, she and I talked about him and my memory of the conversation was that he was shit-out-of-luck if he didn’t want to meet us together, this was his chance.  Now keep in mind, this is the type of guy who hit her up at midnight and asked her to come out to Waffle House for their first meeting … not once, but twice.  All without even being serious enough about meeting to send her a clear face picture … and yet he wants her to leave our home in the middle of the night to come meet him at Waffle House.  What a catch!  So … today he calls her out of the blue, more than a week after their last text message exchange, and asks her to meet him at 3:30 at a bar.  I’m sitting on the couch next to her and hearing one side of the conversation and I can tell from the way it’s going that he is still being a pushy asshole but she is going right along with him and by the end of the conversation she asks him to let her go so she can start getting ready.  Now I am already pissed that she is willing to give this guy another chance, but that is just a ripple on the calm surface compared to the eruption which is about to take place!

Once she is off the phone, she fills me in on what I didn’t hear of the conversation and lets me know where she is meeting him and asks if I want to tag along … to wait down the street at the mall while she meets him.  I let her know my intention is to go with her, but that I plan to go WITH her to the meet-and-greet.  She immediately shakes her head and tells me, “ohhhhh no, you can’t come inside with me!  He wants to meet with me alone, remember?”  Eruption.  All that fear and anger and betrayal that has been simmering just beneath the calm surface goes off in my head like a bomb!  Wait … so the person who spent almost half a year betraying and lying to me and is supposed to be in the process of trying to win back my trust just flatly told me NO I can’t come to her meet and greet to meet the guy who has been a completely disrespectful asshole (at least in my book) … all because that’s not what HE WANTS?!?  Really?  So … exactly when did our relationship begin to be dictated by the side dicks?  Did I mention ERUPTION?

I was shocked at just how quickly all of the pain and emotion rocketed to the surface.  After a few weeks of relative calm and good work on coming together, reading a couple of books on rebuilding trust, even surviving her going on a couple of dates and fucking a couple of guys, but now I am right back at square one.  Angry, yelling, hurt.  After a shouting match that lasted 20 minutes or so, she cancelled her meeting with him.  Less out of respect for my feelings on the matter than because she was now pissed off and frustrated and no longer in the mood to meet him.  We made the most of the rest of the day, falling back on our original plans and going to the movies and dinner with each other.  The waters settled down again and there was that still and peaceful surface showing again by the end of the evening.  But now I know just how much is going on under there.  Now I know that the fuse I used to have, while never the longest, has been trimmed down to just a single tiny thread.  Get a match anywhere near that thread and … boom.