This post is long, and it’s not sexually oriented. But if you’re poly or interested in poly you may find the thoughts interesting.
When people talk about how important communication is to polyamorous relationships, I think most of us don’t quite realize what that entails. However, NOT communicating is the fastest way to ruin things. I have a hard time opening up, and that’s made things with MasterDoc sometimes more of a struggle than they should be. I’m thankful he’s patient with me and that he’s good at pulling things out of me. I don’t know that I realized when I started out as poly that the communication would have to extend sometimes to your partner’s other significant others.
Since MasterDoc started seeing DeeDee things have been a bit bumpy. It’s not a black and white thing, it’s not that she’s a problem. After all I like DeeDee a great deal and like spending time with her. I will chat with her online independent of MasterDoc. She has always been entirely respectful of the existing relationship between me and MasterDoc. But it does seem that when she’s around, I tend to get depressed and bothered about things. It’s not her fault, and the tough thing has been making sure that I let her know that.
We all have our insecurities and personally I have a closet full of them. An only child until I was nearly 11, as soon as my brother appeared on the scene he was a very ill little baby and so I was completely pushed to the side. Thus started lifelong issues with abandonment – or fear of abandonment. At 11 I was emotionally left to take care of myself, and as a shy kid already tending towards depression issues, this was too much for me. I also have issues over being possessive sometimes. Several months after my brother was born, he got moved into my bedroom and I shared a bedroom with my mother for the two years I was in junior high. If you’re thinking that’s one of the WORST times in a young woman’s life to have no privacy and share a room with her mother, you’re right. My brother not only took over everyone’s attention, he also took over my physical space.
These issues, and the wounded 11-year-old inside me, come out when I fear that I’m being replaced. It’s not been a rational fear, but then many of my fears aren’t rational. At times lately I’ve panicked, worried that DeeDee was more interesting, newer, kinkier, more fun to be with. I’ve gotten very depressed thinking that I’m going to be abandoned. I’ve had intense fears of being replaced. I’ve had fears that somehow my relationship with MasterDoc is not special because he’s spending time with someone new.
MasterDoc has reassured me multiple times that this is not the case. And it is totally clear that DeeDee is not trying to set up such a situation. But when she’s around I still find these insecurities being triggered.
Communication
Opening up the lines of communication, even just a bit, can work wonders. Last night after I got all depressed and needed attention from MasterDoc, DeeDee started feeling vulnerable. Luckily, she’s better at voicing her concerns than I am, and the three of us had a talk where she voiced her anxieties: she’s the newest and therefore would be the first one ditched if there was trouble, I’m a younger woman – and I can speak from experience that younger women always seem threatening to older women. I’ve seen this just in my own insecurities early on concerning MasterDoc’s 21-year-old submissive. She’s young, and in our society we’re told that of course she’s more desirable. So even though I’m younger than DeeDee I too have felt the anxiety over not being the younger woman. The conversation became funny when I voiced that my issues were kinda the opposite. I figured that since I’ve been around a while I’m old hat and boring and she’s new and interesting. I worried about being replaced. We both had to laugh because neither of us thought the other had a rational fear going on. And it’s kinda silly that we’ve both had the same fears. And they originate within us and our psyches, because MasterDoc has certainly not indicated to anyone that he’s even remotely thinking about ditching anyone. Quite the opposite.
This morning we got to talk more and I’m confident that the three of us can make things work. We all like each other, and we all want things to work. I’m going to work on voicing my emotions calmly and early on (before they reach a rolling boil inside my head). I’ve got deep seated issues to work out, but I want to work them out. And I’m not someone who thinks that struggling and feeling uncomfortable are necessarily bad things. They’re part of life. And through struggle I will grow. I want to have MasterDoc and DeeDee in my life and happy. And I want myself to be happy. It will take a lot of communication and figuring things out but when something’s valuable you work for it.
“These issues, and the wounded 11-year-old inside me, come out when I fear that I’m being replaced.”
To me, this would make it very clear that I could not handle a poly relationship. You are an intelligent thoughtful woman – do you really want to feel this way? Are you forcing yourself into something that you don’t really want? If you have issues with something, they are never truly going to change that much and so, you will always have these feelings – and I think you know that… they are too deeply ingrained in your psychology. Just as you will always lean towards having depressive episodes, you will always lean towards the fear of being replaced. I would say that putting yourself into a poly relationship would be damaging to you and your emotional well being – although, I’m saying this as an outsider. I don’t know you, obviously, and I don’t want it to sound like I’m judging you. I just wonder about this aspect. If something bothers you, and you know it bothers you, why would you put yourself into that kind of relationship, which only make those feelings come out/worse?
Anica, as someone who has struggled with feelings of inferiority and feeling as though I too was going to be replaced at any mpment, I feel I can try to answer this a bit. I am polyamorous as well. The insecurities we feel, or I should say, i feel do not have a real basis in the relationship but in how I feel about myself. Depression causes a sense of worthlessness and that seeps into how a person views their relationship. If they cannot feel as though they love themself or that they are worthy of love etc, then they cannot feel secure in knowing their partner will see them as worthy. Add more partners, and the person will keep feeling that way. However, if a person is drawn to the poly lifestyle, that person makes a concerted effort to acept that they are loveable and worthwhile because the love they have is being shared with more people and that can also help to raise them in their own esteem. Depression is a difficult problem and the worthlessness can at times be debilitatitng, however keeping communications open and having the reality of the blessings of what we do truly have is what makes it all worthwhile, in my own opinion. Nadia, I am sure has a different take. However part of the beauty is that relationships are not one size fits all and as long as we are willing to work to keep them, they are custom made for each of us