Three years ago today my favorite dance partner, terpsichoros took me to my first DHP. I went because I heard it was wild and exciting. There was also this other boy going and I wanted to flirt with him a lot. Tom and I had very tentatively opened our relationship in December though sex wasn’t permitted with anyone until January. I was on a mad hunt for new people because the near celibacy of the previous year and some were just too much for me. At this DHP I ended up sandwiched between the boy I was crushing on and the strange host of the party. I never did figure out what made him go for me so hard that night.
I went out on first dates with the host of that party and the boy I was crushing on within a week. 🙂 The other boy was an intermittent part of my life for about a year in a very casual way. But uhm… the host, that would be Noah, didn’t end up being casual. At that time he had a primary and I had a primary and I had a lot of rules governing how much contact I got to have without outside people and there were time restrictions on how quickly anything could happen. Which means that on my first date (2/26) with Noah I told him that there would be no sex. Given what a pushy tramp he is he still was very pushy and forward sexually and that pushiness very nearly made it so that he didn’t get a second date. But I spent time with him, often going to the gym with him, and talking over the next few weeks. About a month later we finally had sex and it was ok. 🙂
We got closer and more emotionally intimate. He became the first and only person to ever ask me, “What happened to you?” He is still the only person to ever care that way for me. He wants to see me. We dated until late November. During this period I was the one insisting that I was still just a secondary. He was very enamored of the idea of my being a co-primary with the other girl he was involved with. I had the sneaky suspicion this wasn’t actually ok with her at all and later it was discovered that I was basically right. I broke up with him because I would not be “co-primary” and I didn’t want to come second behind her. I wanted to be the Most Important Person to someone and as long as I was so obsessed with Noah and enraptured with him I couldn’t look for that. It never entered into my head to ask him to change the nature of his relationship with the other girl. That would not have been ok in my head.
So I dumped him, hard. It wasn’t pretty for either of us. It didn’t take long (maybe a month or so) and even though I was pretty certain that a Relationship wouldn’t work I just couldn’t stay out of his bed. Ok, maybe the sex was better than ok. 🙂 But I tried to keep distance there. Then I made a nine month mistake commonly referred to by short hand as “Puppy.” During that period I managed to stay out of Noah’s bed through sheer force of will and desperation to find something that might work somewhere else. Noah was still very much my best friend. His relationship with the other girl went away with much drama. He dated other people, some for short periods some for longer. He started dating a very nice, gentle girl while I was early on in my mistake. I thought he was happy. I was trying so hard to be happy.
Then, by a year after breaking up with him, I was single again and stopping to look at my life and what I wanted. I was still spending time with my wonderful best friend. I was still pretty completely obsessed with him. I dreamed about him. I thought about him all the time. I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to ruin his happy relationship with the new girl, I had broken up with him and I didn’t deserve him anymore. Though I did have active plans to ask him to knock me up when I was 26/27 because I couldn’t imagine a better co-parent.
But in March, two days before the second anniversary of the first time we had sex, he came over to have dinner and hang out. We did that often without it turning into anything other than friendship. This time he told me that he wanted me more than anything, that he wanted to marry me and spend forever with me, and even though he believed I would say no–he had to ask or he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. I sat there in stunned shock for a couple minutes trying to find words. He believed this meant I was trying to figure out how to break it to him gently that I didn’t want him and started stammering out how he knows it won’t work and I don’t want him and… I told him to shut up and launched myself at him and told him yes. Yes, I would marry him. Yes, I want him. We did kiss, but very specifically on both our parts we kept all clothing on. He uhhh was still with the other girl. We talked about how much it was going to hurt her and I was very sad there was no way that I could see for all of us to be happy. I wasn’t going to give up on him again though, not for anything.
He broke up with her. It was uncomfortable and hard. I really have nothing negative to say about how she responded at all–there would have been no better way for her to be. Noah and I started trying to figure out how we fit together without any one else being between us. It was actually a slow warm up. Even though we were sort of technically engaged already we tried to not be instantly together all the time or enmeshed. We only saw one another a couple times a week for a few months. We didn’t advertise how seriously we were taking the relationship for a while. I told him that it was important to me that he not just be exchanging one full time girl for another full time girl. We had to be seperate for a while before we could be together. That sort of worked. The warm up was slow-ish (I’m honest) and good. We started making plans for the future.
One thing we talked about a lot was selling this house and renting for a while so that we could build up a more significant deposit on a better house. Eventually this plan was vetoed for a variety of reasons, but not before his then housemate moved out. It was June by then (whoo hoo, three whole months later) and I was experiencing plagues and pestilence in my apartment. (The flooding from the upstairs toilet and the bug infestations were just Not Funny.) Given that he needed to have some help with his mortgage it looked like he might have to get a new housemate. But… my apartment was sucking… So given that I would be moving in sometime in the near future anyway I just moved in then. Then I ran off to the east coast on vacation and started proceedings for the gorgeous ring that is mine.
We spent the summer trying to figure out how/if poly was going to work for us. Yeah, most of what we figured out is that poly is a fucking headache. We were also talking about the ominous cloud of wedding planning hanging over our heads. Then I got sick. And people were sweet and wonderful and tried to be helpful in convincing me that going to a doctor would be a good idea. In this process they told me that some of my symptoms could potentially indicate a very serious illness that could kill me. While in the midst of freaking out at the idea that I could die I looked over at Noah one night before going to bed and said, “If it turns out I am dying, can we go get married this weekend so that at least I get to be married to you before that happens?” He agreed. So I went to the doctor–uhm yeah… not dying. I’ll be fine. Well don’t I feel silly. So I came home all sheepish and told Noah that I wasn’t dying. He was happy about this. I sat there and fussed and dawdled as I worked my way up to saying, “So uhm, would you be interested in getting married this weekend anyway?”
This was on Thursday before Labor Day weekend. We found a lovely B&B up in Tahoe, booked a room for the weekend and drove up on Friday. We bought a pretty dress and lovely gold rings on the way (my “real” ring still hadn’t arrived). We had a lovely night enjoying our last night of sin before we became all legally sanctioned. The wedding was small (us and the minister) and quick. We said our own vows and I had moments of terror–oh god, what if I am FUCKING UP?!!!! But I stomped that voice out ruthlessly. We went back to the B&B and had a lovely dinner and enjoyed our wedding pint of Haggen Das vanilla ice cream–it’s all about priorities. 🙂 We drank port and enjoyed one another very much.
By late September neither of us were dating anyone else. The poly headache just kind of… was shelved. We fell more and more deeply into enjoying one another and figuring out the rocky bits of how to deal with one another (I may be harder than average to handle, but Noah has his moments too). Meeting his family over Thanksgiving was an experience I will never forget, or need to repeat.
We had a lovely fun Christmas season with some really hot people, but have been really cheerfully monogamous for the past couple months. Given that breeding is in the pretty near future it looks like monogamy will continue to be the mode for the forseeable future. Yeah, we are crazy enough to want to breed and to do it soon.
Do I know this relationship will work out? No. I’m really hoping. I believe that a lot of what makes relationships work is wanting to make them work and I think we both have a very high level of investment in making this work. I love him. I like him. I think this has at least as much potential as any other relationship and more than a good many. So I’m hoping.
Thank you terpsichoros. I owe you more than I can ever repay. You gave me dancing, which I love, and you introduced me to my future. Did you have any idea what you were doing? 🙂
Awwww!
I didn’t know this whole story.
Small Lake Tahoe weddings ROCK.
I look forward to meeting your kid(s).
Re: Awwww!
I don’t think anybody except and I knew quite this *whole* story before this post 🙂
Several people knew the significant majority of it, though, probably you included.
Re: Awwww!
I actually sort of did, although it was acquired piecemeal via various conversations over the last couple of years.
close enough for government work, although I’m not sure why you refer to it as insanity.
(Spoken as sideline spectator who met you not that long after you two first went out — I remember you telling me excitedly about the DHP guy — who’s party I really should go to next time there was one — who “for some bizzarre reason seemed really driven to date [you and you] couldn’t quite wrap [your] brain around why”, and then my meeting him at‘s shortly thereafter. Also remembering all the VERY long discussions he and I had in my kitchen regarding what he wanted for himself, and it being more and more clear that it was a life with you and not the girls he was with at the time, and jee wouldn’t it be better for him to be with you rather than always comparing them to you?)
So yah, not seeing insanity in there anywhere
I think that falling so hard for someone who wasn’t “available” that way was insane. I think that deciding to marry someone I hadn’t been dating in more than a year was insane. I think marrying anyone as quickly as I did Noah is insane.
nah
1) clearly he was availiable. In my old age I often come across guys who tell me they’re seriously involved with another women and I instantaneouly know in my gut, nah, you might think you are but she ain’t the one. Seeing them together often confirms what I already knew. And I’m always right. Once one of these guys had a female buddy come by to visit, and I knew in my gut that the BUDDY was the one not the girl, he told me I didn’t know what I was talking about … guess what, he dumped the girl and is now happily married to the buddy and they have 2 kids. So there’s unvailable and unavailable… Noah was of the still very much in shopping mode unavailable, i.e., available
2) you weren’t dating him, so frigging what. How often during that time did you two talk or hang out, etc. Your friendship was solid throughout. Friendship and trust trumps “dating”
3) 3 years is not quickly, and many of the most happily married folks I know got married after 6 months. Its more that neither of you were all bout getting married, you were all about BEING married, and you both knew why you wanted to be married and what kind of like you wanted to have while marreid and those ideas match really well, unlike the ideas of the other females he was with. Also Noah is really clear on what he wants, he’s sown more then enough wild oats, and isn’t all confused between what he thinks he wants and what he actually wants, like the puppy was.
So no, no insanity here
While this is probably an overgenerous summary to me, I agree with it on all the major points.
I’d have to agree, love — we weren’t *that* insane to do it 🙂
your accusing me of generosity of spirit?! I feel dirty….
Feeling are never based on “availability” – they are what they are. How you choose to act on them is where the assessment occurs. If the two of you felt the same way, even when you had been “apart”, it was a sane decision as far as I’m concerned. The first sane decision in a long string of detours… eh?
For all the twists and turns, it remains a lovely story in its spirit. Thanks for sharing.
I’m in the school library, and I seriously had to resist the urge to make an “aaaawww!” noise, since people are studying.
You and your boy have an incredibly sweet story. I look forward to meeting your future kids…I think they will be awesome. And cute, given the pair of you! ;-D
I wasn’t in the library so I *could* go ‘Awwww’. That is, indeed, a great story. I knew I should have asked you for a night of debauchery, alas for me. Not so much for you.
That’s awesome. A professor of mine once said that romantics are people who believe in the possibility of perfection. I think you’ve just done that much more to convince me.
So happy for you two. this is a really beautiful story.
Awww…..
Thanks for sharing that.
I’m so happy for you. 🙂 I can’t wait to meet him. Any chance the two of you will be coming up north in the near future?
I am planning to come north sometime soon-ish. It is still a maybe for April (Dad has some personal stuff happening that is coming to a head soon) but if not April then in late June/early July.
<3
I love hearing your stories. 🙂
Thank you.
*wild applause*
like Tshuma I also had kind of a general idea of the storyline but I love hearing it in its entirety.
well met, both of you!!
Thank you for sharing your story!
I too am with a man I was friends with but who was unavailable sexually for over a year. When the walls fell, we KNEW it was the right thing. Here we are, seven years later, still going strong.
Being friends first makes the loving so much sweeter later!
Wow
interesting story. Good luck to you both.