Tiny Cheeses
I had a lot of slack time yesterday to make some tiny cheeses. That’s what I call this thing people call “processing”. Where I come from, it’s called “figuring it out” or “working it out” or “working it through” or similar. I’ve heard the word “processing” crop up more and more, and every time I hear it, I think of a little personal-sized mini-factory churning out tiny cheeses.
I was too tired and sleepy and overheated to do all the things I wanted to do, so I wound up snatching little catnaps with periods of introspection interspersed. I was troubled by my love/hate feelings regarding my erstwhile boyfriend’s partner, who was on location and trying to be friendly, as well as love/hate feelings toward himself and also toward my husband. I was feeling very much the passionate love/hate for all three, and rather alarmed and ashamed about it.
I want to be bigger than this. I want to be better than this.
Every time I remember something that he told me that comforted me, I remember some other thing he told me that he later contradicted, which he then reversed again some other time. I never know what’s been a lie and what hasn’t, nor what’s been a lie of commission vs. an error of confusion; by God, the man is a seething knot of confusion. If he’s lying, he doesn’t remember his lies in order to keep them straight. If he’s not … that’s just difficult. It still leaves me not knowing what to believe.
I’m furious with him for putting her first all the time while paying lip service to me about our being equally important. He was all for -telling- me how important I was to him, and how much he thinks about me, and expecting me to be impressed with these, while actually -showing- how much more important she was by his actions.
I’m furious with her for being so remote and unresponsive, while on the surface trying to appear sweet and friendly. I’m angry that while I would have done anything to preserve all our relationships, she didn’t seem interested in improving matters at all. What tempers this fury is knowing there’s more on her plate than just the guy, and she’s really been focused on family things lately.
I’m furious with my husband for his thick filters of self-hatred that totally transform what I say to him. Friday night he threw in my face something he thought I said earlier in the week, which bore no resemblance whatsoever to anything I ever actually say. When I finally got him to spill just when and what he was talking about, it was plain what had happened. He’d gotten individual words, but missed the meaning of the sentence completely because he was already tearing himself up with beratement. He’d used my words as fuel for his self immolation. He’d completely rearranged them into an entirely different context.
I’m furious that working out this godawful mess made us very late for TMT, and I’m furious that for the entire trip, he was behaving in an overwhelmingly provocatively stupid manner. I mean really, really, stupid. He is not a stupid man by any means, and everyone drinks deeply from the Cup of Dumbass sometime, but god damn, he was constant and consistent.
I’m sure it’s his unconscious trying to provoke a fight. Something in him hates him so much it wants punishment, and that sommething so badly wanted me to beat him down that it was doing everything in its power to trip him up. I didn’t give in to it, tempting as it was, but it certainly stressed me out a lot.
It was serendipitous that I saw the Polyamory Dictionary entry I mentioned yesterday, because it touched directly on what was bothering me so much. I try very hard for an overriding principle of my poly life to be that I avoid putting any partner into the backseat over another as much as at all possible.
This actually is a corollary of my step-parenting philosophy: avoid putting the needs/wants of the child in direct opposition to the needs/wants of the step-parent, forcing the parent to have to choose one over the other. Seek some parallel course instead.
But the erstwhile boyfriend did that. He constantly crammed me into corners and slices, totally arranging things around her. He placed me in direct opposition and then consistently chose her, all the while claiming not to do so.
Which brings me back to shame, because I think I may have done that to my husbands too. Ok, I know I have done that to my husbands too. Because time with the erstwhile boyfriend was at such a premium, I let any chance to obtain some completely rule the schedule. That’s no better than what he was doing to me.
I don’t know what to do about it going forward. I don’t know even how to go forward. We theoretically will still be hanging out once a week – this week it’s Tuesday instead of Monday because his mother’s in town and he needs Monday with her. We haven’t discussed any terms for this break, so I don’t know what sorts of things fall within it and what don’t. I don’t know how we’ll decide if and when the break is over.
I don’t have a good feeling about this. I don’t feel any trust at all, no security whatsoever. I’m terrified he’s going to tell me it’s over and that’s that.
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