Monthly Archives: May 2016

Slightly unnerving

I picked that title because I don;t need to cement in my head that this process is terrifying. Eeep.

Trying to figure out what frame I want to talk to Noah about and compare to the frame that he wants is hard enough. Then trying to figure out what I might want to ask other people for so that we can have a conversation in which they are allowed to ask for what they want…

I want to hide in a closet.

Do I really have to talk in person to people like this instead of just talking around them in my blog? WHY?! THAT’S NOT FAIR. I DON’T DO WELL AT THE IN PERSON TALKING.

sob.

Eeeeeeep.

But I’d kinda both like to still be close friends with these people and I’d like to bang them and whether I like it or not… it gets messy.

Sob. Rend garments. Rip hair. Agony.

Noooooooooooooooo communication.

You can’t make me.

Ok. No one is trying to make me. So far one person very politely asked and another person said “Or you can tell me the end result–whatever you need” and another said “I’d like to help and I don’t know how.”

Me either. Can you tell me how I feel about these things? That would be useful.

There’s a lot to balance here. Because everyone needs to feel important because everyone is important. We have a really strong dyad in our house and that’s fine… but that doesn’t make any of the folks we want to play with less important.

We just need to talk about where the happy medium is. What is the closest we can get to what we want.

I’m glad we are four days without yelling or screaming now. I hope this trend continues. We are both reacting from a completely terrified and insecure place and I hope that can change.

Noah. I hope I can manage to change my behavior enough to stop scaring the hell out of you. Thank you for being willing to talk about ways you might need to change for me. If we could figure out what we want to ask for it would go faster.

We are getting better. Closer.

I feel like by the end of the month we may end up with a bunch of different written documents. Maybe including flow charts. Years ago I went to a protocol play class taught by Tristan Taormino. She talked about having a 13 page (or more? Memory is fuzzy) document outlining behavior.

I totally got wet thinking about it. Fuck yes. I’ve never forgotten that. The idea of having that much certainty about what you are supposed to do. Swoon.

It was that long and detailed because different situations require different rules. Given that I spent half of last year traveling with my kids because I need them to understand deep in their bones that different situations require different rules and I have historically had a hard time figuring those boundaries out alone…

God I love a good contract.

I looked at my old contract. (Apparently other people have been curious about it a lot lately too because that gets a lot of hits.) It is interesting noting the similarities and differences between what I want now and what I needed then. My Owner really was as close to a Daddy as I could talk him into being.

Do I want that with Noah? Is that what I want forever? I know I want codependent enmeshed stuff, but do I want that kind of taken-care-of forever? I don’t know.

“The slave is to try to contribute positively to the relationship and submit to
commands as they are issued.” I’m giving a side eye to this bullshit right now. My Owner really didn’t like the degree to which my mental health problems impacted his life. Suck it. I get depressed. I get anxious. I get suicidal. I feel intense self harming urges. I’m not always a positive fucking contribution.

I want to feel like I am still welcome here.

I want to feel like I am good enough for Noah even when I don’t feel like I am good enough to justify continuing to eat or sleep or breathe. That’s an unfair burden to place on a person.

What is fair?

One massive difference will be that our “normal” protocol will be out “kid” protocol which is to say… just about none. Like, maybe there are household provisioning things. Or maybe we get more ritualized about hello/goodbye… but dat’s it.

No more in front of the kids.

My kids will never see me kneel to nobody.

This is nonnegotiable.

I don’t give a shit what other people do. This is about me.

Some day my kids will figure out that I’m a sexual submissive and it is going to blow their minds from here to kingdom come. “You?! You do what dad says?!?!?! Hahahahahahahaahaha”

That’s going to be how that goes. About how it went with my mother. “Wait. Say that part again. You do what someone tells you to do?”

I am completely and totally convinced that all my obedience in this life needs to happen on the down low where most people won’t even know it is happening. Safer that way. My experience of looking too sexually submissive in front of people was that it wasn’t safe.

Hi, I’m Krissy. I’m a bad ass motherfucker.

Oh golly. I got an interesting perspective on Youngest Child recently. We are getting to know a new little friend and there was a mild altercation between this new friend and YC. The other child hit YC and I guess YC glowered back but didn’t hit. I wasn’t clear if there was verbal threatening of some variety on YCs part…. but there was a lot of intensity involved. Enough that the other child was affected.

That’s my baby. I’m proud. Keep that shit up.

Good enough

I was asked if I had a good day. I didn’t sleep well. I’m in a lot of pain. The kids are all fussy and I have five of them here. I did tons of chores (laundry, dishes, vacuuming, sweeping, putting books away, helping kids clean their room) and I took a rest period during babysitting.

I really can’t complain about my day.

I’m thinking a lot about this negotiation thing. I don’t want to be “polyamorous”. I’m also ok with being an asshole. But I really don’t want to hurt my friends if that is avoidable. That makes everything about sex and emotions complicated. Even if I’m “just” nonmonogamous… I love these people.

What does love mean anyway?

I don’t really know.

But I know I love you.

I know I want you to be happy and to be treated well. I know that I need to deal with my triggers around some of this in some way even if that means there are some things I pussy foot around because PTSD sucks.

Maybe non-traumatized people should never make a rule to avoid trauma. I’m less convinced that I should never create rules for managing trauma. That’s a thing.

Especially if it is things like, “Being nearby when Noah plays with friends is fun and exciting and when he does it away from me… I completely flip out so let’s make sure I’m nearby when you play.”

Is it “fair”?

What the fuck does fair mean.

I’m not saying it is a fair reaction. I’m not saying that flipping out is a rational response. I’m saying it has been predictable for over 15 years. I don’t share that well. It is complicated and layered and I have distinct limits around it.

Is it fair that Noah is less possessive so I have more leeway? Maybe not.

I’m not sure he is less possessive. He is less traumatized. It makes a difference.

If he really and truly couldn’t handle it… we’d figure something out.

But should I have to handle something because he can? I struggle with that. I feel very small and ashamed because I can’t just match his generosity of spirit.

I know it has been nice for me and I suspect it has been nice for Noah to hear the long list of things we each feel insecure about. There was a big part of me that didn’t really believe we would work out. But 10 years later I want him a lot more than I did at the beginning.

I respect him more. I appreciate him more. I like him more. Knowing Noah more deeply makes me want to make sure I never ever lose access to this person.

When pretty much anyone looks at me I’m always trying to figure out why I’m wrong and what I need to try and tone down to not bother them.

Noah is the only person in the whole world who has ever looked at me like I am his dream come true. That’s heady shit, yo. I try as hard as I can to give that back.

The calm in the storm is over.

Next mood swing: cranky

It has been true so long that now it is almost funny. When I am being really really self-hating… the fastest way to break that mood chain is to get cranky at someone else.

This time I’m cranky at a friend who said something true but in a very unkind way. It isn’t that this friend is wrong. It is that the delivery… wow that was… shit dude. You never ever get to comment on my lack of tact again. Fuck.

Who is the asshole in this relationship? I think that answer is both of us.

I also think that the solution to my problem isn’t completely where my friend thinks it is… even though that was a true statement.

It was also a very blamey statement and whoa. Given the shithole I have climbed out of, telling me that all my problems are because of _____ is a bit uhm.

Yeah.

I had kind of an interesting set of realizations. (This won’t be as long as I want it to be because of pain.) I do not aspire to have a concrete set of boundaries I present to the world as “who I am”.

I truly don’t. I don’t want to have a set persona and this is who I am and this is how I must be treated. How I must be treated varies from person to person and is in large part constructed based on our past experiences and reasonable expectations between us.

I exist in context of my life. Different people have different kinds of access to me for very complicated reasons and those are not strictly tied to how long I’ve known them nor what kind of previous exchange of relationship duties we’ve had.

Even though Jenny is my oldest friend and has been there through some of the most fucktastically intense moments she isn’t one of the people I can be most assuming with. She has boundaries of her own. So that relationship is shaped by our mutual agreements.

Ok, this is what I’m arguing with. But I’m not going to give you context for why it was brought up.

I think I am mostly motivated to argue against it as hard as I am right now because I am so pissed off with the delivery around it. I am not very rational like that. I don’t overall mostly think it is wrong. Only I strongly disagree that I have to want autonomy and to not compromise.

I do make special rules for people to show them that they are special. I like it that way and I am not going to give up on that because someone else thinks it would be a superior lifestyle. Maybe you have had the kind of life where you can have one united front of personality. I didn’t.

I don’t think each relationship with outside persons is independent. I think that a relationship with X is compounded by the fact that they are dating Y who is dating Z who is dating A who is dating…

That whole chain impacts my life. I care about the whole fucking thing and that makes discussions about boundaries not about a bunch of autonomous people negotiating one to one in my opinion.

Long story short: it occurs to me (after being asked, cause I’m a self absorbed bastard like that) that we should talk to the folks we want to see in the future this month before we finalize agreements and stuff between us. We aren’t negotiating about imaginary possible people. We are negotiating about people who are already embedded in our lives. That’s a lot of layers of extra complication.

Oh. Shit. Yeah. Thinking about everyone’s feelings. Shit. Shit. Shit. Yeah. We are supposed to do that.

Oh.

Whoops.

Usually I like coming to folks and saying “I want x. Yes or no.” But this is deeper than that. Quite frankly, these are mostly folks where we already love them and that means this really should be an actual conversation.

Oh fuck polyamory.

I DON’T WANNA BE A GROWN UP. FUCK RESPONSIBILITY. FUCK CALCULUS.

Then be monogamous you skank.

…. Ok fine we can talk.

Fuck.

I’m not gonna argue with you.

It’s the assumption that all people need to always be operating from the position of being an autonomous human being.

Nope. I reject that. I choose to think of myself as part of a dyad first. Yeah, I need to have a self that is separate as well but I do think that figuring out how to be in this dyad is more important than just caring most about myself and my boundaries. Yeah I’m ok with loss of control of my own limits in return for knowing what I can expect in trade.

I don’t want anarchy. I’m ok with ranking and comparing people. I am less important than the primary partners of the folks I’m seeing when I am in a secondary position. I believe that. My Daddy is married and handfasted. Those relationships are more important than his relationship with me because those are the people who seriously carry him through life. I am there sometimes. When I have stuff to spare. He needs to cover his ass and I 100% support that.

There is exactly one person who picks my sorry ass up off the floor over and over and over and over again.

I god damn notice that and I think the fact that he does that entitles him to some level of influencing my behavior so I don’t hurt him on accident.

It’s all well and good to “assume people don’t mean to hurt you” but I live in a world where people get hurt anyway and your intentions mean shit.

We trade a lot of control over ourselves as individuals for ability to dictate the shape of how to not hurt one another. I like that. It’s a good trade. I will trade loss of spontaneity for a lot of ability to say “Yes a Not b.”

And holy fucking shit just… I… I … I’M BEING SO GOD DAMN GOOD RIGHT NOW.

I’m going back to bed. Cause I need to not stick my foot all the way god damn down my throat.

FUSS.

I love you. I know I’m not good at “arguing the words on the page” the way you want me to. It would take me a few thousand words to explain why those words are a thing and I’ll talk around it till the end and my hands can’t do that.

URGLHFLURF

My relationships aren’t all autonomous. My relationship with my submissive is influenced by my relationship and his relationship with his other partner.

I don’t want complete autonomy. I really don’t. I like that my web involves a lot of cross responsibility. I want that. I want to figure out how to honor that and my own limits.

Time, attention, sharing

This shit sucks to talk about. Like whoa. What are we doing? There are so many layers to “fair” here. We want and need different things. We really do.

The things we can offer aren’t necessarily the things we want to receive.

The things we want to receive… we can’t offer even a little. We are so different.

Monogamy has meant a lot of “let’s not talk about x problem because there is nothing we can do about it” and that’s getting blown up. That means we are talking about shit we maybe should have talked about years ago and we just didn’t know how. Or it hurt too much. Or something.

This is hard. What do we really need? That’s hard to say out loud. We need different things. That’s very true. We have always needed different things.

I have read a lot about 50/50 marriages. Where folks try real hard all the time to make things “equal” like who earns money, how to negotiate child care, splitting up housework…

God that sounds hard.

We aren’t good at doing the same things. If I had to earn 50% of our income… it would go down like whoa. If Noah did 50% of the housework he would have a lot less time and energy for paying attention to me and I consider that a bad trade.

I will happily keep the house clean while you are busy with shit I can’t prevent you from doing so that at the end of the day you will turn the full radiance of your attention on me. Fuck vacuuming. I can do the vacuuming.

I want your attention. I want your attention. I want your attention. I want your attention.

Not getting enough of Noah’s attention feels like a plant withering from water. I cannot live. I cannot grow. This is not a want. This is a need. I will die piece by piece if I do not get this.

We have never been all that good at balancing this. I would drain Noah dry if he wasn’t careful. I want so much time and so much attention.

If Noah worked 10 hours a week and spent the rest of his time with me, that would be ok with me.

I remember Auntie freaking out when Uncle Bob retired. She went out and got a job to get the fuck away from him.

I can’t wait until Noah spends more time with me. Please. He’s trying to have his next job be a remote job so he can work from home. I think that sounds dreamy. It will help him with his extreme burnout on dealing with people. It will let us just… be in a room together more. We like that.

I don’t want to date other people because I want less time with Noah. I want to date other people because when I do so our sex life is off the chart amazing. It is true that I was not willing to discuss limits on what I was doing a month or so ago. I really wasn’t. I shut you down. I know I didn’t communicate about that. I know I scared you. I know I hurt you.

am sorry about that.

I know it still hurts the way I’m framing Portland. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m not sorry I realized I need this that badly. I’m not sorry that I limited my cheating in the exact way I did. I’m glad I had at least that much restraint and yeah I know that is chicken shit.

I’m glad I didn’t fuck up bigger. Clearly I needed to fuck up.

I feel really bad for being so god damn glad that I only fucked up that big. It was a fuck up. Yes. I am so very happy I only fucked up like that. When my self-control goes… shit I’m glad I did that well. I know I hurt you. I know you want me to be way way way more contrite than I know how to be about this. It is so complicated in my head.

I’m so glad I didn’t fuck up bigger that it is hard to be as sorry as you want me to be.

That’s weird and hard.

I am sorry I hurt you. That’s a full stop. I know that’s a chicken shit apology. That’s not a real apology. I know that. I am sorry I hurt you.

I am sorry I couldn’t talk about more pieces of this before I flipped out and just had to go fucking play with people. I’m sorry I told you I wouldn’t follow any rules and scared you so much. That was terribly unkind. I really should have found a way to negotiate a short going off leash period… not acted like that was the way things are now.

I really fucked that up.

I don’t want the rest of my life to look like April. As awesome as my friends are.

Noah. I am here for this. But I’ve always liked having lots of people come over. I’ve always had lots of friends. I just want to have sex with more of them more often. Because that’s fun. Yeah I’d like it if you were there most of the time. Any sex that involves you is better than sex without you. And to be honest, after all these years it is weird to orgasm without asking for permission and you don’t want me asking anyone else. It’s hella convenient for you to be there.

I’m insecure about the loss of time and attention. It’s not about your dick. Not really. I know I’m enmeshed. I know I… pull maybe more of my sense of self from this relationship than is strictly speaking healthy but this has gone so much better than anything and everything else I’ve ever tried. That’s complicated.

Sigh.

I’m nervous to speculate here about some of the stuff we are talking about. Intensity vs variety. What do they mean? What do we want?

What do we need in order to feel safe and happy? We are different. We need different things.

We are filling in different shapes of gaping holes in our hearts.

I’m happy to help shovel for you if you help shovel for me.

I know you don’t feel very likable. But I like you so much. I’ve already devoted 1/3 of my life to you and I plan to have that percentage only increase.

I’m frustrated with the idea that I shouldn’t feel entitled to anything from you. I don’t find that very useful.

Wow. I just had an interaction that I want to start reacting to. And I don’t. So time to stop typing.

A little hopeful

Giving space for negotiation was smart. It means that both of us are feeling less reactive and terrified and likely to freak out. It means that today’s conversation doesn’t feel SUPER IMPORTANT because someone has a date tomorrow. We agreed that we would treat the first couple of weeks as just… speculating out loud. In the last week we are going to sit down and write up formal contracts.

Cause I take written agreements fucktastically seriously because I can reference them over and over. That helps.

Today’s conversation was great. Thank goodness for Minecraft. Let the kids have two hours of screen time and we can have a real chat about what we want.

I’m still scared, but it isn’t at a fevered pitch.

I feel like maybe y’all were right. We’ll sit here and grind until we figure this out. We are good at figuring shit out. I feel like we found gratitude again today and that helps. It is nice when we can both point out that we see the hard things the other is doing.

Like Noah working like fuck to manufacture cheerfulness for me. That’s hard for him. He does that for me because it makes my life better.

I do want to owe him for that. He took this thing I liked and worked and worked and worked on it. He isn’t actually the most cheerful person naturally. He’d like to be kind of a cold bastard. But I really need him to bring me up. So he does it. Day after day, year after year. He is my ray of sunshine so that I remember that I have so much to be glad about.

He does it even when he’s kinda depressed. It is such visible strain sometimes. Yes, Noah. I see you. I see how hard you work to be positive and cheerful and bouncy for me.

Thank you.

That’s a huge thing you do. And you do it basically every fucking day. Even when I’m a pain in the ass. Even when I’m depressed. (Ok you falter when I’m being an asshole but that’s  fair.) Even when I’m not putting out much. Even when I’m whining about how you aren’t enough.

You still deliver.

Thank you.

I really like a lot of the suggestions that have rolled past today.

Let’s keep talking. We aren’t writing anything down yet. Too much left to discuss. I’m glad I get to talk about this with you.

I would manage

My friend said, “You don’t really want another baby. How would you manage five kids?!”

I looked at her and said, “I’d manage.”

She looked at me for a minute with an interesting expression on her face. “I think you would.”

There’s not much I couldn’t do, if it meant another person would love me.

Words and asking

Yesterday Noah asked me why I didn’t use my words to ask him for something if I wanted it. I hissed, “How well does that go?” He said that I get a lot of little things I ask for and almost none of the big things. I just about screamed, “That’s why I didn’t fucking ask.”

There is this story about my mom that goes around and around in my head. My mom got tired of having her little boys play with their Matchbox cars in the kitchen, the only non-carpeted room. She knew my dad would tell her no to ripping the carpet out of their bedroom. “It would hurt the resale value of the house.” So she waited until he went to work (he worked graveyards), put the kids to sleep in her bed, took speed, and ripped the floor up by herself. She had the laminate mostly installed before he got home.

I asked my mom why she didn’t ask him. She snorted and said, “If I ask then I get told no, then the consequences are big. If I just do it… he’s not going to undo it.”

I think that’s a lot of why when I decided I couldn’t be monogamous right now I said I just couldn’t follow rules and I needed to try stuff. I needed to see what felt right and not say no to things before I even really decided what I felt about it.

And that backfires. Like such arrangements do.

Sometimes. And sometimes it is absolutely the only way to get what you want at all. Yeah, I was a serious asshole. I really was.

I feel like the fact that my sex life has been entirely measured in someone else’s satisfaction for many years now has broken something in me. Something I don’t know how to fix. I’m bitter about how much “taking one for the team” I’ve done.

I guess the thing I’m getting from the team is physical support through disability. Oh.

It is interesting having a friend visiting for the weekend (sorry I’m puking) who is an absolutely ardent feminist. Of the take-no-shit-variety. I was doing my expounding on trying to figure out what I “owe” Noah.

She looked so pissed. I said, “It’s ok. Say it. Even if it’s mean.”

“I want to punch you in the face. You don’t owe him shit.” She went on at more length. But that bit is enough.

An awful lot of our relationship is predicated on transactional trades. We spend a lot of time talking about how much we owe one another. It’s complicated. It is a lot of what allows both of us to feel safe.

But there is no fair.

How much of everything in life has to be changed just because of one shift. I don’t know.

Yesterday I emailed all of my folks and told them I am not going to go out on a date again in May. We need to actually negotiate. This is involving some really long, rough conversations in person and a shit ton of livejournal entries on our private filters. There are things my kids don’t need to see someday.

I am so weird about boundaries.

I think that part of the problem right now is I have made a lot of deals over the years I probably shouldn’t have made. Not how I did. They took from me in ways I didn’t really have that much to give. And I feel long term hurt by them. And I’m feeling bitter. And I’m holding it against Noah.

That list of done-me-wrongs never needs to be part of the public record. That’s kinda like crying rape because you didn’t like the sex. The fact that these are in retrospect not deals I should have made…

That’s not something I’m going to publicly take Noah to task for. That’s complicated.

I made choices. I made choices I shouldn’t have made, but I didn’t know that till it was too late. That isn’t something to punish Noah for. But I clearly do.

Recently Noah made a list of shit he was holding over me (good god that. STILL?!?!) and I should probably do the same.

That won’t be public.

Noah and I are in a funny place. We both understand very clearly that if we don’t make this marriage work… we will just not ever be ok again. We won’t get over this failure. Neither of us would remarry and have more kids. We would date and be complete assholes about never trusting anyone again. This is… one of those things about our personalities. We both walked into this not sure that it was really a good idea to be taking a risk on even one person when we have been burned and burned and burned and burned.

When you learn before age 3 that you are not loved, not likable and all you are worthy of is abuse and contempt…

Trying once is really what you have in you. Getting over that is brutally hard. You can try once. After that it will be broken in a way that can’t be got back.

We get one shot at happily ever after.

No pressure.

To be fair most of the first ten years have been excellent. This really has been a good marriage. But some things need to change and how they need to change and what that shape will look like is… in flux and that’s god damn terrifying. Change sucks donkey dick.

I find it… interesting… that Noah is really willing to talk about a third kid lately. Yeah. That would put me right back on a choke chain. It’s true. I would go home with my baby again.

I want another baby. I’d see a high risk OB. I’d be at a hospital the whole time. I’d follow orders so I wouldn’t die. But… yeah. I don’t think it is going to happen for lots of reasons.

I know my friends are starting to talk to me about adoption but I’m really not done grieving the son I wanted to give birth to.

This is complicated with a gender fluid kid who really… is on their own journey.

I wanted to work through my shit with a little boy. I know that isn’t “fair” either. But I did. I have to grieve not getting that. I mean, I have a great relationship with my Bonus Kid and I’m really happy he visits more lately. But it’s not the same.

I have never been allowed to love a little boy of my blood. My nephew was the closest I came to that and… complicated. My brothers were violent monsters. I had no other family contact.

This is just a thing.

I dreamed about my son for years. Sometimes I wonder if I was dreaming about the sons I could have had with previous partners and that just wasn’t meant to be part of this story with Noah. I don’t know.

It’s complicated.

Yes I know there are lots of kids who need homes. They are going to have different problems genetically than my family. I don’t already intimately know what needs to be done to correct their unavoidable issues; I have researched everything that has touched my family extensively over the past fifteen years. It is going to be a very different very hard problem to work with a different child.

I am so tired.

Now that I have an almost 8 year old and an almost 6 year old, do I really want another baby?

Yes. I really do. But it isn’t going to happen. Sometimes I wonder if wanting space away from Noah is part of grieving that. He doesn’t want another baby.

I get why. There are good reasons. I feel sad.

Being a mom is kinda the thing I think I’m best at. I get quiverfull. I get it.

This is all so complicated. Because if Noah was all “Fine let’s have a kid” I’d be all “Bye side-boys. I’ll see you in 5-7 years.”

Even though the rest of the deals are still not where I need them to be long-term. I wouldn’t care.

Life is so complicated.

My biology understands that I exist to breed even if the rest of me would like to do other things with this meat sack.

People are so fucking weird. Even though I don’t really have the spoons to have a baby I would. I’d start trying this month if Noah consented. He’s about to be 40. Time’s a wastin’. I turn 35 this year.

But that ship has sailed. We need to figure something different out. Shit. That’s hard. It hurts.

We construct these careful houses where we can be safe. Do this, don’t do this. So we try to draw as little negative attention and as much positive attention as possible while maintaining stasis. We accept limits that may not be sustainable in service to particular goals.

I don’t know what sustainable means. I am not the best sustainer in the world. I work best in sprints followed by periods of collapse. Parenting that way sucks. So I have to be more level for them. Which is an interesting thing to balance. I can stay level if I stay small. Or if I get bigger with support.

I can’t be a bigger person and take up more room and get no more support and stay completely level. I can’t. [delete text that doesn’t go into the record].

I’m having feelings.

Thank you to everyone for the extent of the “I know you two will solve this” message I’m getting from a variety of folks. From folks we date/play with to other friends. It’s kinda funny. I feel all y’all believe in us far more than I do right now.

Thank you. I need you to carry that belief for a bit. It is hard for me.

Part of being able to construct your own reality rests on the basic requirement that you must be able to believe in what you are doing. I have a pretty good reality distortion field. But it’s flickering and I feel like I am not able to believe in what I am trying to make true.

I don’t know how to feel more safe and open right now. I feel closed off, defensive, scared. I’m not negotiating from a mindset of generosity. I have a scarcity mindset and I feel so tired of always having to take one for the team.

But Noah takes a lot for the team too. I’m not acknowledging that enough. We have both been running deficits for years. It isn’t just me. I… I don’t even know where to begin in this negotiation. This is so hard. Do we make lists of things we have been missing/pining for and then rank them in importance?

How do we deal with time? Is it about how much time we spend together? Is it about “how dare you spend time with someone else?”

Honestly I was out too much at night in April. I wasn’t touching base with the kids the way I want to. I have arranged all the night time babysitting we are going to have till the end of July, I think. I’m not going to go out more than that. No matter what it is for.

This time with my children goes so fast. If I miss much of this time I can’t ever get it back. I don’t get a second chance. I do remember that priority.

But I don’t ever get back the chance to have the sex life I want to have in this life either. If I just… don’t… that’ll be a thing.

How much do I want? I don’t know. Honestly given how busy my life is… I literally don’t have time for as much independent dating as I did in April. That’s going to kill me. No hyperbole. My body will give out if I don’t sleep more than that.

What does sustainable mean?

What is a need and what is a want?

I feel like I need to have some kind of nonmonogamous contact in my life. What that is… I don’t know. I think the need level is probably actually fairly low. I think one date a month probably would be ok. I’d like to go to parties at other times and be allowed to play then. I could accept having to play together. That would be fun to figure out. It would change who we play with somewhat and what kind of play we do. Maybe?

I can deal with evolution. I don’t have to play how I used to play, not exactly. I don’t anyway. So much has changed.

I feel like I did need to go try. It was wonderful and I’m really glad I got to be reminded of what SM means to me. And I got off a lot.

I do need some of this in my life. I may increase how much I need as my children need me less.

For now I do know that my time and energy is still… mostly going into the kids. I choose this. I want this. This is who I want to be. When I finish growing up I will be able to look at incontrovertible proof that I can sustain something. I need to see the real evidence of that before I will believe it. I’m not even halfway there yet. Don’t get cocky, wench.

Hubris is dangerous.

I have about three more years till I hit the halfway point. I believe I have about four more years with Eldest Child and about six more years with Youngest Child to teach them what they need to know to keep themselves safe… or they will have to learn it on their own painfully. That’s my window. Either I help them establish the habits that will carry them through a lifetime… or they have to learn them later, painfully, on their own.

Development is a funny beast. I’ve studied it a lot. I have incredibly strong opinions about brain development and attachment and behaviorism and emotional health and mental health and…

And I get one chance to do this right. Period. If I fuck it up I will forever more be trying to heal damage I caused.

No pressure.

I love unschooling. I’m not even being sarcastic. This is my kind of pressure chamber. I thrive under this specific kind of “Succeed. There is no or else. Succeed” pressure. I just… do it. Ok.

If you can’t find a way you make a way. The most resilient people are the ones who believe they have no choice but to make something work.

This whole “owe” thing is complicated. I get the anti-feminist bits of it. I do. But you probably don’t see how much it gives too.

Ugh. Systems. They exist for reasons and some of those reasons are good and some are shitty. WTF

But I really do need to think about this “you don’t owe him shit” thing. What do we choose to owe and what is being extorted from us? I think that is the more crucial distinction. I think making conscious trades and feeling indebted for them is not specifically evil. I think that having someone extort recompense for trades… is a problem.

Where is the line?

Shit monogamy is easier. You give what you have to give and that is that. Kinda end of discussion.

I NEVER EVEN TOOK CALCULUS. FUCK THIS ADVANCED VARIABLE BULLSHIT.

My kids are asking me a lot of questions about Lemonade. Yes they get to hear it with the swearing. There are some fucking subjects that deserve swearing. The work is to figure out context. We talk about that a lot. Code switching is a big topic around here. If you maintain super formal “nice people” manners 100% of the time… a whole lot of people will think you are a snob. Having multiple kinds of approaches to talking to people is handy.

I said to a friend “We only fight about nonmonogamy.” The response: “So you only fight about sex.”

Ok, yeah. That’s true. Not money. Not kids. Not housework (if I start feeling peevish about not getting enough help I can ask for it and get it with great civility).

Sex.

Sex is so annoying.

WHY DO I LIKE HAVING SEX SO MUCH!??!?!?! Sigh.

I really do.

I like what happens in my body when I’m having sex with more than one person. I like it a lot. I like what it does to my general energy level. Is it worth this fight?

Yeah. It is.

If we are going to be married for many more decades… I’m not spending them always taking one for the team. I need my sex life to be about my pleasure.

And pain.

I’m pretty sure I know who I want to hurt on a longer term basis. I am less convinced I know for sure what I need from my bottoming/submitting/etc. I have some idea of pieces I’d like. But are those all needs? Not really. I could be pretty flexible. I could adapt.

I am weirdly conscious of how much of my sexuality formed around my Owner. I’m ok with lots of those buttons shifting. I have no attachment to them staying where they are. But I need them moved and not just… ignored. If that makes sense.

I am a cheerful situational pervert. I’m happy to please the one I’m with. I don’t need all aspects of my experiences to be the same.

I’m not the kind of fetishist who collects the garments and sized toys that all future partners will wear one right after another.

But I’ve sure worn a lot of them. For a little while. I have never been willing to do that for very long.

I don’t like anyone that much.

Do you know why some of the awful stuff between Noah and I really doesn’t need to be published? It’s bad enough that I’m an abusive bully. I don’t need to publicly humiliate him. That’s a very different sort of line. I say some awful things some times. It’s bad enough that he can hear it in his head. He doesn’t need to see it. And know that lots and lots and lots of his friends are going to see it. Know his children can read the things that hurt him the most.

Oh JesusFuckingChrist No.

No. There are things that can’t be taken back. I can say that things are hard for me. I can’t list done-me-wrongs. Not publicly. No.

owe my family better than that.

See how the owe is complicated?

It is useful and problematic at the same time. Just like me.

You want specifics

With my primary partner (this was true with my Owner, Daddy James, and Puppy too) I have a fairly specific set of feelings when they want to play with other people. Looking at the NVC book, here are some of the feelings I go through: agitated, anxious, aroused (yes in the positive sense), ashamed, distressed, downhearted, fearful, fidgety, frightened, furious, guilty, helpless, hostile, hurt, jealous, lonely, mad, overwhelmed, repelled, resentful, sad, sorrowful, spiritless, uncomfortable, uneasy, unhappy, unnerved, unsteady, upset, vexed, wistful, withdrawn, woeful, worried, wretched.

See why I don’t find this real helpful? How in the fuck does a block of text help? It isn’t one thing.

It is hot. I do feel aroused. It is terrifying. I am scared and fearful and I don’t know what is going to be the long-term result.

In my life I have not done very well when it comes to comparisons. I am not picked. I am too much trouble. So when it looks like Noah is going to go start having lots more comparisons to make…

I’m about to lose and lose big and I am completely and totally freaked out.

(It doesn’t help that my Owner spent years telling me I was “the One” then changed his mind because I was too much trouble.)

It doesn’t matter if Noah comes home and says I’m still his favorite. I’m being compared now. I may have “won” this round but I’m going to lose. I always lose. I am a fucking piece of shit and I don’t win competitions. I don’t fucking compete because I lose and lose and lose and lose and lose.

People around the world have very different amounts of contact with their loved ones. Here in America it is very common to spend 40-80 hours a week away from your family. Noah usually spends 45-65 hours away from his family because that’s my god damn limit.

I wish I got way way way more time around him. I have a hard time with the fact that I have to work really hard to get consistent adult contact in my life. I want there to be adults who help regulate me. I regulate my emotions partially off the people around me. I know I’m dysregulated because no one else is freaking out. I want them to be around a lot and arranging that has been so fucking hard in this lifetime. I never manage for very long.

For Noah to want to date means that the hours I already think are too many are going to grow. The hours I already think are too few are going to shrink.

Yeah, I know I’ve been dating. That’s been just about entirely absorbed by me giving up the alone time Noah facilitates. Which is fucked up and is going to cause me problems and isn’t sustainable. But hasn’t impacted how much time we spend together very much. And I’m using babysitters to cover a lot of the time. So whereas I admit that we are losing together time because of me… it isn’t that big of a percentage of the time I’m gone.

He doesn’t have that option. His time is already spoken for. I know I’m lying to myself about my time being away not counting as much. But, no really, him being gone is a huge thing. It’s bullshit and I see that. He shouldn’t be tied to the house just because I want him to be. But he was gone for about 12ish hours in each week he goes on dates. That’s like another part time job on top of his part time job on top of his job. And he likes picking up other outside jobs sometimes.

It all adds up. It all has to come from somewhere.

I have been bitterly fighting for a bigger piece of Noah’s attention for 10 years. Everything that threatens that is hard for me.

Whereas I feel like my time where I am not being Noah’s wife or a mom… usually can get counted on my fingers in a week.

I understand that his job(s) aren’t vacation time. I get it. But he doesn’t work that much because he has to. He picks up side jobs where he has to work alone because that is part of how he enforces alone time.

There is no fair here.

I have tried a lot of things over the years to fill that… awful feeling of having nothing outside my family. Writing… sorta helps? Not really. I tried filling it with relationships with home schoolers. Guess how many of them are still calling?

I tried filling it with platonic relationships with women in a variety of different scenarios. Most of them are… too busy or it didn’t work or…

I try.

I don’t feel secure. Which really sucks for Noah because he’s been trying for ten years. A long time ago I was told that trust is like dripping water in a bucket. Once it gets full enough any tiny nudge will cause lots of water to come spilling out.

It isn’t fair that I don’t believe Noah really wants me. I think, much like a guy I once dumped, he married me because he didn’t have someone better immediately lined up. (The dude I was dating was describing his first wife. He married her when he was young and not very accomplished. As he aged and… “improved” he felt he deserved better. I wasn’t interested in being wife number two under such an arrangement.)

Noah is not a monster who hurts people just because he has feelings. I think he deserves to have a partner who doesn’t hurt people constantly.

I hurt people by wanting things and not being able to handle it. I am not an adult. I do not know what my boundaries really are because pretty much the only thing I’ve ever done when someone crossed a boundary was just leave.

Because I have never really had other options.

And now that I can’t leave I’m hurting people so much more. Because I still don’t know what my boundaries are. And I can’t get out of the way and let other people have what they know they want and can handle without me being a problem.

I am the problem. If I weren’t in the way things would be fine.

This feeling goes back to my mom crying because she couldn’t go rescue Tommy from my dad because she had to stay and take care of me.

It was my fault Tommy was hit by the car. My mom couldn’t keep him because of me. Because I was such a fucking asshole I caused fights and Uncle Bob hurt Tommy and we couldn’t stay together. Because of me.

I always hurt everyone.

And I never ever ever ever feel like I get enough attention and I am always trying to manage that and when I try to get attention from more sources Noah deserves attention from more sources and all the sudden he is gone for 20-24+ hours in a month dating.

Because I was a stupid whore who couldn’t keep it in my pants.

And when he tells me he isn’t going to and he tells someone else he really wants to….

I feel like it is all my fault he can’t have the things he wants and I should die to get the fuck out of the way. Everything would be better without me.

I am the problem. I have been the problem since the day I was conceived.

I ruin everyone’s life. I ruined my mom’s life. My brother’s life. Ok, not everyone. But I’m afraid I’m ruining Noah and my kids.

I am a selfish piece of shit. Who in the fuck am I to model what it means to be a healthy, functional, or good person.

I understand why people choose to not trust me with their children. I do not understand why people trust me with children.

My children should be taken away and given to someone who does not deserve to die.

There have been times in my life when it wasn’t hyperbole to say I had nothing. I am deeply aware of how much I do not need or deserve what I have right now. Everything in my life should belong to someone who is not a piece of shit. Someone who is better than me.

I know these people exist. I have met them. It isn’t hard. You can’t really swing a dead cat without hitting someone who is better than me.

I may or may not be a more effective tool than average. But I am not a better person.

You know what sucks about freaking out like this? I’m shooting myself in the foot. Because I don’t want monogamy.

I don’t know what I want. But I don’t want or need Noah to be monogamous. But at this point he’s pretty much convinced that is what he needs to do to keep me from hurting myself.

I’m not sure that would be an effective life-long way to keep me from hurting myself. Not really. I think other things will come up. I think that locking yourself in a box will… not actually make it go away as a problem.

I don’t know what the fuck would.

I don’t know what the fuck would.

If I were to list what I’m feeling right now: afraid, aggravated (with myself), agitated, alarmed, anguished, annoyed, anxious, apprehensive, ashamed, bewildered, blue, brokenhearted, chagrined, confused, cross, dejected, despairing, despondent, disappointed, discouraged, disenchanted, disgruntled, disheartened, disquieted, distressed, disturbed, downcast, downhearted, embarrassed, exhausted, forlorn, frightened, frustrated, gloomy, guilty, helpless, horrible, horrified, hurt, keyed-up & lethargic AT THE SAME TIME, listless, miserable, mournful, panicky, pessimistic, sad, shaky, sorrowful, sorry, spiritless, tired, troubled, uncomfortable, unhappy, weary, wistful, withdrawn, worried, wretched.

You want feeling words, motherfucker.

This stupid book tells me I’m supposed to make requests.

I have none to make. Because anything I request might blow up and then it is my fault I have hurt more people.

Because I never seem to get this right. I just do it wrong and wrong and wrong and I hurt people. Because I am a selfish, insecure, petty piece of shit.

I feel like the fact that Noah is willing to give me more attention because I lost my shit means I neither deserve nor want the attention. You didn’t want to give that to me freely of your own will. You want to give that to other people. It is now not for me and I DON’T WANT IT. I do not want to receive attention because I have extorted it. I do not want to steal the attention my friends deserve from them. They are fascinating, wonderful people and if they have earned that attention they deserve it.

I know how worthy they are.

You showed me that you didn’t want to give it to me. You wanted to give it to other people. All the nope.

It isn’t mine now.

I feel like I need to plug that gaping black hole of need for attention with anything painful I can find until I finally get it through my stupid, piece of shit head that it is never going to be filled and I need to stop fucking asking.

And now I’m deleting thousands of words at a time because I’m not sure who I’m going to hurt with that digression. Good job, bitch.

Well. At least I knew enough to delete that wander. I really don’t want the consequences.

Fuck. I should stop.

I am pretty sure I am not ever going to feel like I deserve to be actually important.

 

On being mentally ill in public

I’ve been documenting my ups and downs for a long time now. This is something that happens. I have a really extreme range of emotions. In order to let people know me I document them about as much as I can. Which means people are invited onto the roller coaster with me.

Which means people always ask what they can do.

Not a whole hell of a lot. This isn’t about you. Even if you are one of the people who is closest to the center of the storm (like Noah) there isn’t a whole hell of a lot someone can do when I’m going up and down like a cork. That is in me and is only kinda sorta barely related to what is happening around me.

In general I do not request nor want major adjustments in life structure or behavior in the people around me because of my volatility. That would become problematic very quickly as I became controlling to everyone nearby.

That’s not more healthy.

Which makes monogamy shit really fucking tricky.

What can you do? Love me when I’m done. Be ok with me taking space. Let me know you’ll be there when I come back. Let me know you don’t hate me because I am riding this roller coaster.

I think that being on this roller coaster means I deserve contempt and abuse. Because I am hurting people by being so fucking difficult.

I am difficult. I do have ridiculously intense emotional reactions to things that logically I believe should not be a big deal.

No one is threatening any part of my life right now. No one put a single toe out of line. No one went a hair over a deliberate boundary.

But I want to die because I believe I am the source of pain for many people and I have absolutely no idea how to stop being that source of pain.

What should someone do for me? Fuck if I know. DON’T THREATEN TO SEND ME TO A HOSPITAL.

That’s the biggest and most important thing. If you want me to feel safe never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever threaten me with hospitalization. In my extremely well considered and educated opinion mental illness is best treated out patient within a supportive community framework which I already god damn have.

You go to hospitals if you are physically ill and you need medicine you can’t get any other way. You go to hospitals for surgery. Otherwise going to a hospital is asking to be hurt.

Don’t threaten me with hospitalization.

Let me stay home and snuggle my kids. Let me hide in my garage and write about my feelings in the safest environment I’ve ever been in.

The people who mostly know me now have never seen anything like the level of panic, fear, and dysregulation that would become dominant if I felt I would be hospitalized against my will again. I am literally not sure I could survive that experience again. I think my body would do anything anything anything anything to make sure I don’t have to live through that again.

You do not understand how traumatizing being in a mental hospital was for me. Any time I feel I am slipping a toe out of line on “how I am supposed to be” that is an undercurrent of why the panic escalates. Not a big piece of it, but it is fucking there.

Don’t hospitalize me. I’m sorry I’m bad. Please don’t punish me any more. Please please please please please don’t punish me more.

I’m sorry I’m bad.

I don’t feel particularly good about inflicting this on the people around me. I feel like it is all my fault. Sometimes the triggers really do seem to be my fault. There is stuff around nonomongamy that I 100% blame myself for opening the door.

It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening.

I do not blame anyone else. I did this. I hurt myself. I open doors I don’t want opened. Because I want other doors open and things are connected. I bring this on myself.

This is my fault for not being able to keep it in my pants. I deserve to feel pain.

I am not angry with anyone else. I am angry with myself.

Important to consider

I have been on this roller coaster for almost 30 years now. My behavior/emotions right now are not really and truly tied to what is happening right now. I just do this. This isn’t rational. This isn’t carefully considered.

This is what triggering means. There are things that… send me round the bend. And I’m going to be on that trip for a bit.

That is what living in a highly traumatized body means. It means that even when I really fucking wish I were just mellow and ok and fine with what is happening sometimes I’m not.

I try as hard as I can to be ok with things. Often to the point of hurting myself because I accept things long past when they are triggering me because I’m so tired of being the whiny baby who needs everything to be all about me.

One of my friends said that I need to identify my core emotions and deal with them because I will never be able to come up with a list of rules that prevent me from feeling like this again.

The only part of that I agree with is that I can’t prevent feeling like this again.

I don’t know that I think that identifying my core emotions matters.

Nothing that is happening now should feel threatening. Nothing that is happening now should feel threatening. Nothing that is happening now should feel threatening. Nothing that is happening now should feel threatening. Nothing that is happening now should feel threatening. Nothing that is happening now should feel threatening. Nothing that is happening now should feel threatening. Nothing that is happening now should feel threatening. Nothing that is happening now should feel threatening. Nothing that is happening now should feel threatening.

Doesn’t matter. I feel like everything I have is about to evaporate. Because I am not good enough to deserve any of it.

I am not good enough to deserve Noah or anything else I have.

Because I am bad. That is what this all feels like it boils down to. If I weren’t so fucking selfish and immature and stupid and petty and bad… I wouldn’t be like this.

I have very strong feelings about how much punishment I deserve for this. That may become a problem. I feel like I am wrecking Noah’s life. I feel like I don’t let him have joy or pleasure or experiences he wants to have.

I feel like I should die so that he actually gets to live. Because I don’t know how much living he will get to do with me standing around. Because I am a contemptuous petty bitch.

I hate myself.

Who will I hurt next?

This week the list seems to be growing by leaps and bounds.

I don’t like myself even a little bit.

I don’t like how insecure and neurotic and pathetic I am.

I think I am ruining Noah’s life and he would be much better off pursuing the laundry list of people he’s had to give up for me. They wouldn’t be the fucking asshole I am. I’m the problem. The other people he wants to date are generous, kind, and tolerant. I am the problem. I am the problem. I am the problem. I am the problem. I am the problem. I am the problem. I am the problem. I am the problem.

Maybe I should stay home for a while. When I leave the house all I do is hurt people.

Bleeding didn’t break my suicidal ideation this month. That’s because I am such a pathetic fucker I am hurting fucking everyone.

I don’t think I deserve to have friends, let alone lovers.

I’m ready for a new mood.

I don’t know that there will ever be a time in my life when I’m not the reason people can’t have nice things.

Asymmetrical agreements

I asked Noah questions last night about what he gets from sex, play, and dating. What he wants and what he needs. He told me a lot of things. Some of it I kinda knew. A lot of it I didn’t. In the end he said, “But the thing is, I want ____ with you more than any of that. If I do those things I won’t get to have ______ with you. It isn’t worth it.”

It’s true. If you date, Noah, you won’t get to have what you want from me. I won’t be able to give it to you. In order to share you I will have to keep you out at arm’s length.

I can share really really really well when someone doesn’t feel like mine. I’m the most generous slut ever when it comes to people who don’t belong to me.

I’m sorry Noah.

It isn’t fair. I know.

Why? Why can’t I share and have real closeness? Because I can’t. Because if you want to go see other people that’s fine but you are sleeping alone afterwards. Because I don’t want to touch you.

I don’t do that after play parties where he plays with people.

I’m an asshole.

Because I’m scared. Because I’m not very secure. Because I’m a baby. Because I can share the casual people because I don’t have any belief they will actually be in my life long-term. If they are that will be a pleasant surprise.

In order to share I have to be ok with not knowing you soon. Because if I don’t like how something is going with sharing I need to be able to walk away or I’m a mean nasty bitch. When I feel threatened I am horrible. Which is why I don’t feel possessive at all of my casual partners. It would be toxic and problematic.

But you want me to feel possessive of you. Which I do. Which means I want to scratch your face off for wanting serious alone time with someone else.

Because I’m a fucking asshole.

I’m not mad at them. I’m mad at you. I hate you for wanting that. Even though I want it. Because I’m a hypocrite and a fucking asshole.

This isn’t fair and I feel really guilty.

You can give this and I can’t.

That doesn’t seem fair at all.

In order to tolerate Noah dating I’ll need to make the garage into my bedroom and not come near him on the day of his dates because I’m mean. He doesn’t really want dating if it means I will be isolating away from him.

I’m not trying to punish you with the isolating. I’m trying to avoid punishing you. I know it doesn’t feel that way. My control is… variable.

Noah says that even though I document the kid fuck ups I don’t need to punish myself with publicly talking about every speck of what I do to him. Because he’s a grown up who has consented to this relationship and we talk seriously about when I step over the line and we keep track of it privately and he says I don’t need a public firing squad for being mean to him.

I think he is being too nice to me. I am scared of him not getting the support he deserves from friends.

I have had very blunt thoughts in my head about why I picked Noah. Of my available options in life, he really was my only chance at getting to write the specifics of the story I wanted. He was my only option who was interested in what we have now when he suddenly proposed out of the blue. He and I talked last night about what it took for him to get from what he offered when we dated initially to where we are now. It was quite a departure from established norms for both of us.

When he rattles things off I can see why he picked me. But I still don’t get, really, why I am worth so much ongoing trouble. I’m a lot of fucking trouble.

It is really hard to help me feel even a little bit secure. I’m not a secure person. Noah doesn’t just do cartwheels. He does them through flaming hoops. Suspended over water. I’m not sure how he manages.

Noah did concede that when I am not monogamous my orgasm response goes through the roof. Yes, I was doing better after the road trip. It’s true. Be fair. But not like when I’m dating. For the record: last night was awesome.

BIG NEWS! I finally started bleeding. HALLELUJAH!

I love that I went into the bathroom and after wiping I said, “Glory be!” Noah said, “Ahh, started bleeding?”

That kind of intimacy is awesome. He knows why I’d be happy in the bathroom. (Ok, I knew I wasn’t pregnant… but I was feeling paranoid. Yes I’m fucking thrilled to bleed. I knew I wasn’t pregnant because I’ve been pregnant four times. I will never ever mistake that feeling.)

It bothers me to know that if Noah died I don’t think I could ever let myself be in that serious of a relationship again. I don’t like how much I control Noah through my insecurities. The only way I know to manage that is to not get that serious about someone.

Why do I think nonmonagomy is good for my sexual drive? Because we had sex most days we saw each other in November (I got home at Thanksgiving). In December we had sex 14 times. In January 7 times. In February 14, right before going off leash.

In March we had sex 22 times. In April 29 times.

That’s nonmonogamy. That’s how it works in my body. I had sex with other people on six days in April. Usually I had sex more than once per date but not every single date due to timing.

That’s nonmonogamy.

I had sex with other people on two days in March.

We are up to 9 times for May. It’s the 4th of May. Oh god. May the 4th be with you. cringe

Why so high in May already? Anyone who will do 9 straight hours of processing with me for a date deserves lots of oral sex. That tends to lead to more things. Like last night.

Normally I don’t have sex on my period. At least not for the first few days. But for some reason oral then anal was beyond ok.

I think I am remembering the book right but we are having fun with Doc and Fluff overtones because we decided that ass fucking needs to be only in the marriage going forward. I had been considering it with other folks. I already did it once with my submissive. Noah wants me to not do that again. He won’t be fucking anyone else in the ass at parties either.

We are so possessive.

Noah was the first person to successfully fuck my ass. Other people tried first but he managed to do it in a way that was good and not traumatizing and was fun. He took me to Monterey for a weekend. Got me good and drunk on port then he seduced me and just… made it work.

I’ve done it with uhm a lot of other people since that before our marriage. Only a little bit since we got married. Sounds like I’m done.

Because Noah wants that. Ok. Yes. I like the idea that you want to be possessive. Be my guest.

(Yes I know I will have to update the users guide again at some point. How about if we kinda finish negotiating first.)

We probably only have 150 or 200 or so hours to go. Cheers.

When my therapist was a Berkeley dyke she commented that Noah processes more than a Berkeley dyke and that’s just weird.

I know you pay attention to me. I feel it. Thank you.

I’ve actually come a long way. I used to hide in the corner and cry when my Owner tied people up at parties. He didn’t ever have sex with them. He didn’t go on dates. I couldn’t handle having him touch other people.

I really have mellowed out. As improbable as that seems.

I am more secure.

Hilarious.

Apparently one of my friends thinks that cis-women are just too much trouble. I so am.

I’m not at a point where I feel particularly deserving of how difficult I am to deal with. I’m a lot of trouble. I take time, energy, so much attention….

I feel like a fucking vampire. I feel like I am evil. I drain people.

I want more than my share and that’s wrong.

I have this black hole inside of me and I don’t know what to do about it. I need a lot of love. I need a lot of attention. In order to be perky and cheerful I need a ridiculous amount of sex.

Like, so much that my therapist bugs her eyes out and says, “I don’t understand how you physically do that and get other stuff done.” Oh I get a lot more done when I’m taking breaks for sex frequently. It seriously fuels my productivity.

I definitely overdid it in April. I hit burnout feeling. I am feeling kinda done with people but my life is still very scheduled. It’s going to be one of those time periods when I celebrate people canceling on me and I still don’t turn anything down because I’m dumb. (Ok, I’ll turn dates down. I mean friends.)

Because I ran away from home to stretch taut the strings in my life. Folks are trying to pull at the strings and I just can’t say no to tightening those bonds.

I need you and you and you and you and you and you and you.

Why do I need all of you so bad? Because none of you have that much to offer me. And I’m a black fucking hole.

The only trouble is y’all have your own needs and this has to be a trade and that’s why I’m feeling so burned out.

I get a lot of energy from folks. I give a lot too. It’s going to be fascinating to try and regulate this so that I’m nice to Noah and the kids.

I’m not capable of figuring out how the rest of my web will look in 30 years. I know that my life will largely revolve around Noah and my kids if I don’t fuck things up. Noah wants it and Noah is demonstrably all in on making that true. My kids show every sign of being folks I will be able to have a relationship with later.

I don’t know for sure that we will live near each other. But the way Deity talks about his parents gives me hope.

There’s a juxtaposition. One of the things that probably contributes strongly to why Noah is so safe for me is because he is not melodramatically divorced from his family…but he doesn’t actually have a relationship with them. That’s broken. What exists now is mostly there because of me and my damn letters.

Deity has a very positive relationship with his family. Listening to him talk about his interactions with them is fascinating because I want that.

But I don’t think there would have ever been any possibility of my becoming part of that kind of thing as the child side at this point. I think I… I would be the problem.

I need a partner who, like me, is alone. Who needs that obsessive enmeshment because that is what we have in this life.

But I want to be the parents for that.

And I want side pieces. Cause I’m a selfish asshole. No, because when I have side action I want to fuck for five hours straight when my kids aren’t home. Ok, not straight. We can take breaks. Cumulatively. In between talking about intense and overwhelming topics that most people never want to talk about at all.

Yes. That.

I want that. Someone who has the time and energy to spend most of the rest of their life obsessively fucking me. Because they don’t have that much else really… pulling their attention away. Yup. I want that.

I have that.

I am so lucky.

I don’t feel like I’m isolating him because he only sees his friends because I make him go. I push him to schedule trips with friends. I suggest people for him to email and go visit. I am forcing him to create his own web.

Because if I break he will need to be caught.

And my web, while wonderful… wouldn’t be perfect at that. It is shaped for me.

I don’t really want him to be alone. But it makes it a lot easier for us to enmesh the way we do that we don’t have families who try to hold us into an image of who we are. We are free to create our relationship without giving a shit about approval.

That’s…

That’s a big thing.

I might have different feelings about a lot of what we do if we did. I don’t know. I can’t know.

The problem with all this desire to go out to parties together is babysitting. But! I’m arranging split custody stuff with a friend. Because that’s how this is going to work. The kids need folks to be with all night long on a regular basis and this is how I can arrange this. And my friend needs some damn support.

Four kids is often easier than two. It’s weird. They are very self contained. There are times when it feels like being a circus ringmaster and I’m so grateful they get to go home.

I’m keeping them two nights this week. My friend kept my kids for three nights in a row. While her kids were puking. Yes honey, you can rest.

Thank you so much for giving me space to ride that whole emotional roller coaster. I’m really glad Noah and I got to talk for probably 24 hours in that time period. We are… talkers. We have a lot to process right now.

God I love this man.

Taking breaks from the emotional processing and bonding for vicious sex just seems like, yeah… that’s what I signed on for.

Today I am setting up a guest bedroom for a bit. Pam could use a place to sleep. We have a weekend long guest coming soon. Another friend spends the night sometimes and can’t crawl over the tile work. It’s going to suck because it is in the play room with the window removed but the garage doesn’t work right now. At least it is warm! And Noah has one more date on the books. I’m not going to be an asshole.

Damnit.

I don’t know why I have this thing about not canceling but I do. Once something is scheduled… canceling is… whoa. I don’t do that.

It hurts people when you make plans with them and don’t keep them. That… that hurts. It gets their hopes up and then makes them feel like they aren’t that important. I don’t like to do that. I try very hard to meet the expectations I set. Which is really complicated for someone who is as moody as I am. Heh. When I negotiate for weeks then wake up in a mood…

Heh.

With casual people I can get it up. I can take on a role for a limited date and do what I said I’d do. I know that in the long run I’ll be happy with myself.

With Noah that’s… shit I can’t do that all the time.

Ok, here’s a weird sticky wicket about why I’m less inclined to ask Noah to cancel the date he has scheduled. That person… I’ve played with. I’d uhm really like to play with her again some day. Which uhm yeah. Not to mention that she is a very close friend who has been present at some of the absolute most intimate moments of my life.

Complicated.

And after his date with her we had ridiculously hot sex because I felt very comfortable fantasizing about her and we were kinda… yeah. That wasn’t awful and bad. I freaked out because they did it in her house in a way that I started juxtaposing with pictures of my kids and that made me sick to my stomach.

Because my kids go there. Ugh. Gross. No. Yuck. Bad. No.NOnonononononono

See, this is so random and fucking weird.

It isn’t that I object to Noah having a sexual relationship with her. I really don’t.

I wish I understood what my boundaries were. That would make this so much easier.

Near as I can tell the only way to figure out my boundaries is to keep fucking up and crossing them so that I can course correct and stop doing that bit. That’s the only thing that has ever worked.

Speaking of which, it’s 6:30. Time to go on duty. Bye internet. I love you. Talk to you later.

Not enough.

It occurs to me that part of my trigger around Noah dating is probably related to the fact that my mom was incapable of loving more than one child at a time. I was literally sent to live with other people over and over and over because I was too demanding of her attention when she needed to focus on another child.

That’s not all of it. But it factors in.

If someone I love a lot loves people other than me… I’m going to be sent away. Because I will never be able to behave good enough to deserve being loved at the same time.

I sure make that true, don’t I?

A small point.

Noah says that I’m lying about something and he’s right. I bitch about not getting off at all with monogamy… but that had already changed when I got back from the road trip. Things were doing lots better.

It’s bullshit that I want to fuck around just because I can’t get off. I do get off with Noah. Not every single time without fail. But there are times when he gets me off and off and off and off.

I shouldn’t make it sound like he doesn’t at all. There were a few years in the breeding period that sucked but I need to not hold that against him. It wasn’t about him. It was about my body. And it’s over.

Don’t be an asshole to Noah about that anymore. Let it go. That’s not ok to hold on to.

Be more honest, Krissy. Don’t conflate old problems and new problems. That’s not nice. That doesn’t help things get better.

post-therapy rambling

My shrink wants me to think about this picture when I’m trying to figure out what is fair for rules for me and Noah. She reminds me that having a traumatized brain/body means I am probably not ever going to be able to have the same limits as other people. Mine will just be different. I can feel like shit about that or I can get on with my life. Those are the options.

Noah and I don’t need the same things. I feel weird about that. The things that make me feel so scared I could puke don’t bother him. The things that bother him the most… I don’t notice.

In my head someone has to be wrong. Is it Noah or me? Of course it is me. That’s… just how things go.

She had some things to say about some of the stuff that has been bothering me that I don’t want to write down but gosh I hope I remember. Why don’t I want to write it down?

Well if I told you that I might as well just write it down and get the consequences.

Consequences suck.

I’m not going to write much. I have sick kids here. That’s ok with me. Sick kids = snuggly kids.

But I have a lot to think about. How much anger is ok? How am I allowed to react to my anger? What steps should I take to be appropriate? It’s all so complicated.

Selfish asshole

I’ve said for a while that I’m not interested in being polyamorous. I also say that I’m not good at being monogamous. These are still both true. Noah and I have been talking and talking and talking. We are both wicked insecure. We both have a lot of abandonment issues. It makes sense given that neither of us have relationships with our families of origin.

We both feel kind of at sea in the world. We both have a hard time feeling truly connected, wanted, important. This isn’t a problem that one or the other of us have.

I’ve been hurting Noah. He’s been hurting me. I kinda feel like we need to do that sometimes just so that we have to stop and scream LOOK AT ME. STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

Because over time we take one another for granted. We try to be grateful. We try to be aware and appreciative but it’s hard year after year. Sometimes we need to go do some asshole stuff so we can apprciate the fact that mostly we aren’t assholes to each other.

Last post I thought I’d have three dates a month and Noah would have one. Noah doesn’t really like what I will have to do to deal with that one date a month without being mean to him. Because I would have to take steps to deal with my feelings and not abuse him. I would need to create a lot of space around myself so I don’t lash out.

Because I would want to lash out.

Noah dating triggers so many insecurities for me. I don’t like it.

This is weird to me because I don’t freak out about him playing with friends at parties I’m at. That doesn’t bother me and I don’t god damn know why.

But Noah wanting to go out on a date with someone else… One on one time where he can pay attention to them because they are special…

I’m a fucking asshole.

Because I sure don’t mind me dating. Uhm, we decided I need to go down to two dates in a month. Because yeah. We aren’t cancelling May. Because that’s asshole shit. But starting in June we are going to… not be going out with other people so much. Because yeah. We may not be perfect at monogamy but spending as much time together as possible is really what we both want from life. If we feel that way we should act that way.

Going forward I am very happy about the boundary: no sex in places our kids go (other than our house). That feels… like a thing for me.

I’m trying hard. I’m trying to figure out what wants to bend and what needs to stay rigid and…

This is all hard.

But Noah doesn’t want me to hate him. Not even a little. Not even for a little while. So yeah. Him dating is complicated. Because I do hate him when he dates. It’s terrible. It feels awful. But it’s there. I fucking hate him. He is pretty confident I wouldn’t be able to compartmentalize that long term. Maybe he’s been looking at me for a while.

And hearing about his dates makes me physically ill.

So yeah. How much dating should we do? Maybe not so much.

Is this fair? I don’t think so. But life isn’t fair.

I kinda want to list all the things we talked about. All the levels of insecurities. But the thing is, talking about that has the possibility to hurt my friends and I don’t want to do that. I’m not insecure because of the people involved. The people involved being this safe actually makes it that much harder to feel this way.

All of the people involved are wonderful, safe, kind, considerate and loving. I’m the asshole.

I’m so sorry.

I spent a long time talking to the Professor yesterday and he tried very hard to talk me into thinking that it is ok for me to get angry with Noah. I don’t feel like it is ok. I feel like it is disgusting and shameful because he deserves better than that from me. He really does. He is my whole world.

Even if I like fucking other people. Noah is everything.

Yes we still have a lot of conversations ahead of us about play. The intensity thing is going to continue to be a … topic… for a long time to come.

Sunday and Monday were so awesome. Thank you K for letting me have this. Saturday was… mixed. Mostly good. (Thanks Deity.)

My feelings are not because of the people Noah plays with. My feelings are because I’m neurotic, insecure, and I have very little intrinsic self worth. This is not anyone else’s fault. This is my shit. And it’s shit.

Noah and I talked a lot about whether or not it is easier for me for him to date strangers or friends and…

It is easier to have him date friends. It isn’t that I think anyone he has seen has any desire to be a homewrecker or a problem or hurt me or anything like that.

My fear isn’t rational. My fear isn’t based on anyone doing anything wrong. But it is intense, all consuming and there. I have to act like it is there and deal with it. Or it leaks into my life and I am a seriously problematic person.

I can’t keep verbally abusing Noah. I just can’t. Which means I need to take steps to make sure that stops. It isn’t something that comes up very often. I think this is the third time we’ve had to work on this issue in about 12 years.

When I feel hatred like that… I am fucking mean.

Yeah. I know exactly what to say to make you feel like shit. I’ve watched you for years. Yes. I can take you apart with a verbal scalpel. Yup. No problem.

I need this to be the last time I ever talk to Noah like that. It just can’t happen again. He deserves and has earned better from me. Which means I need to be careful about the situations I put myself in. Because when I’m that angry… I need to put physical space between me and Noah. Because I’m a problem.

And I don’t handle him dating. I feel really ashamed of myself.

Noah wants me to be open, vulnerable, transparent, and relaxed. I can’t be any of those things when I hate him.

I just can’t.

Which isn’t to say that I think him dating deserves me hating him. It doesn’t.

I am such an asshole.

I’d rather be told, “No really this ‘I don’t want to follow rules’ shit is over. Follow some fucking rules” than be told, “Fine then I’m doing what I want.” One of those effectively reins me in. One of those means… our relationship kinda sucks. But it only effectively reins me in after I’m good and hurt and pissed.

Like the mature and responsible person I obviously am.

It isn’t that I feel I must own Noah’s cock solely and permanently. It is that… I want to be there. I don’t want to feel like I am being left so he can go find someone more interesting. Which makes me a flaming cunt for dating other people.

God I don’t like me very much.

I have no particular desire to stop seeing my submissive, Deity, Cupid, or Daddy. But if I only get to see them every other month… that I can live with. To be fair I’ll probably make damn sure I end up at parties with my submissive every month even if we don’t make dinner dates every single month.

Noah won’t let me hit him. Ok he would let me hit him. He told me so. But he wouldn’t like it at all and that feels terrible. I have absolutely no desire to hit someone who is tolerating being hit but who doesn’t like it. That’s disgusting.

I feel… like a piece of shit for wanting to date and not wanting Noah to date. I am not asking Noah to be monogamous.

I notice that he puts a lot of effort into dates with other people. We have dates if I go find an event and I go find a babysitter and I …

That hurts.

I feel selfish and terrible.

Yeah. This is who I am. I am selfish and terrible.