multifactorial peripety

[flamingsword]

My ovaries are being NOvaries today, and it is ouch. But on the plus side I have gotten a lot done in the last several days, so my body can suck it. My mind reigns supreme!

---

My boundaries about this process:

I am not made responsible for knowing what Ghost needs. It is not possible for me to hold both sides of a negotiation for him

I will not be made to be a counsellor for this, as I cannot be a non-involved third party with specialized training and experience.

I will not be the only person making progress. We stay accountable to each other or I don't do a blessed thing.

We mutually decide on times tables and set calendar reminders to circle back.

Relationship green flags:

Ghost picks a book for us to read that will help us repair or de-escalate our relationship ✅

He and I pick a therapist ✅

We go to therapy ✅

We agree on a timetable concerning what are signs of progress and when we expect to see them to stay accountable to each other

Ghost and I read the book/s we decide on✅

we set a schedule and talk about the books ✅

Ghost talks his way through discerning what can apply to our us/to him from the books.

we negotiate our wants and needs in counseling

we check in with applying the things we learned in books and counseling to real life. ✅

we look for common themes in progress and books to see if there are deeper problems to address.

Negotiating Skills

asking for small things before they become big things

creating win-win situations

dealing with overwhelming feelings and flooding separately from negotiating

putting the things we want and why on the negotiating table

being mindful of fairness without keeping score

trying one thing at a time to avoid side-issues

avoiding false consensus

communicating expectations as well as desires

try things, then reassess on specific dates and times

What do I want?

for Ghost to not be in anguish concerning our relationship

to not have to move out and leave both of us with less support

to not be forced to choose between people I love

a formal apology for implying that I am a bad feminist

for us to not resent each other after this process

for Ghost to see us as equals

for him to not make me responsible for the direction and progress of our relationship

for Ghost and Merlin to be able to have metamour talks when needed



Sorry I haven't been online much this last week, as you can see, I have been busy doing feelings work and reading Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern.

Comments

[sabotabby]

I hope your recovery is as swift and painless as possible.

[flamingsword]

💜

[princessofgeeks]

Wishing you all the best as you navigate these uncertain waters.

[flamingsword]

💜

[minoanmiss]

*soft analgesic hugs*

Becoming poly is probably the most feminist thing I personally did.

[flamingsword]

I don’t know that I ever became polyamorous. I was having daydreams about having a polycule when I was seven. I think I’ve always been wired this way. For Ghost, it was a choice to do something outside his comfort zone, but for me it’s just as natural as breathing and more natural than eating and sleeping. I question why I can’t just photosynthesize all the time, but I never question nonmonogamy as my style of relating.

[minoanmiss]

nod I hear you. I could have repressed this side of myself but why would I? But I know other people who simply could not have.

Also unfortunately you'd need a lot more surface area to efficiently photosynthetize. Especially considering that most plants don't run and talk and lift things like humans do.

[ex_flameandsong751]

-many hugs-

[flamingsword]

💜

[cassildra]

Sending love and kind thoughts to you and the polycule.

Polysecure is a really good book. I need to find my copy and reread it myself.

Polysecure is good and I have thinky thoughts

[flamingsword]

The book has been so helpful thus far, especially thinking in terms of the nested model of attachment. I may not attach securely to my parents, but I don’t feel attached or attuned to this whole culture, and the feeling is definitely mutual. I hadn’t considered that that could work its way into my attachment to my people, that the way I was bullied and how my Mom tacitly accepted it would become a permanent wound in how I attach to other people. But it did. I expect other people to judge me until they have proven that they won’t, and it’s part of why I’m so high-masking in public, even though that’s draining and alienating.

I get that NT people don’t think that they mask the same way, and they are definitely not masking the same things for the same reasons, but this prescriptivist outlook that American society has for what people “should” be like just seems like a straightjacket that everyone is supposed to live in their whole lives. I get that Autistic folk have to mask more stuff, but don’t neurotypical people still find it stifling and lonely to not let people really know you, to never feel like you can be your authentic self around others? At least with other neurodiverse folks we can take the mask off.