Today I see a general doctor (talk about eating problems and sleep problems), an acupuncturist (holy shit my back hurts), a high risk ob/gyn, then we drop the kids off in Oakland and go into the city to try on our fancy clothes at Dark Garden. When that is over we come home for a group date.

I leave my house at 8am. I get home around 6. The date is due to start at 7.

I got lots of sleep last night. I was in bed for eleven hours and I think I got almost eight hours of sleep. It has been a long time since I slept that much in a night. I guess my body was serious about wanting me to prepare for all this tramping I’m going to do.

I’m going to do so much. I’ve agreed to put this urge back in a box for years after this month. Because it hurts Noah. That seems fair. It is nice of him to suggest this month. Very nice of him.

I’m feeling weird about calling it Mardi Gras because that has a meaning and I feel like I’m appropriating.

I feel kind of guilty in advance. I’m going to push this month. I really am. I need to put this back in a drawer after the month? Ok. Then I’m going to be seriously slutty. This has to tide me over I don’t even know how long.

I was thinking that I would stick to the people Noah feels safe with. I would stick to mostly group play. That was what I was thinking. But I’ll resent the shit out of that long term. No. If I’m going to do this I need to do it.

Luckily I’m the kind of slut who can pull this kind of thing together.

I think I’m going to go to a swinger party alone. The number of folks in that crowd who have already hinted they’d like to play is high. Given that Noah asked that I only play with him at the first swinger party we are going to this month… I think I’ll go to a second alone.

Because I’m that kind of girl. I don’t know of that many sex parties these days. I’ve kinda been restrained for a few years here.

I am nervous and excited. Time to get dressed and do chores before breakfast and heading out for the day.

Noah is looking at me while I type. We are making eye contact. This is one of his favorite things. He likes that I keep typing while looking at him because my hands have a journey of their own to be on.

I like that Noah likes me so much. Yeah, I’ll come home at the end of the month and that’ll be ok. We’ll figure out how to make this work.

I love you so much.

Do you know why I repeat my schedule so much in writing? Because otherwise I have the bad habit of forgetting appointments and not showing up. I do this so I don’t fuck up. It helps a lot.

A lot of the reasons I’ve been such a selfish asshole lately are because of resentments. Things I do or put up with or don’t get and I resent it. I feel there could be another way, but I get what Noah is ok with me having and tough shit.

I don’t think I have a bad deal. I really don’t. But I’m still a resentful person. Not all the time. Usually I can squash it.

But sometimes it overwhelms me.

What would feel like an actual rebellion? What would feel like it was making up for the resentment? I think that’s kinda what I’ve been trying to do and it is failing.

It’s failing for so many reasons in so many ways. I’m still such a resentful piece of shit. I’m… falling more into line but I feel this simmering cauldron in my chest. Will this long term be abated by group play?

Do I still want to be married?

Yes.

Do I still want to be married to Noah?

Yes.

But I also hunger for feeling like I am something other than his.

Recently I was talking with someone who is completely opposed to being (name) & (name). Even if this person dates or has sex… they don’t do relationships and they never want other people to know about the interactions. It all has to stay secret.

That’s not me.

I’ve probably had a maximum of five years of my life where I didn’t have someone in the “person I’m crushing/loving on” position since I was five years old. So about thirty years of that now.

I’m never just me. I don’t exist that way. I’m always Krissy & _________.

Always.

As a result I’m pretty damn good at conflict resolution which is amazing given how pro-conflict I am. Anyway. I can find relationships. Keeping them is harder.

Dealing with long term resentment is hard. I resent the motherfucking shit out of the years of not getting off. I know it was mostly about me and my hormones and whatever, but I was gritting my teeth through pain so you could fuck me. For years.

I feel so much resentment. I feel owed and angry and I don’t know what.

And that is a terrible attitude to have. How is that going to get me anywhere? But I fucking feel that way. I feel so fucking mad. I don’t know what I expect him to do about it.

I want to scream and break every glass object in my house. I want to scream and scream and scream and scream that I am tired of my sex life not being about me.

Which will cause Noah to turn and say, “Hey I’ve been trying harder lately. See we’ve been keeping track on the white board and now that I have that hanging over my head you’ve had a bunch of good days so what are you complaining about?”

I know.

I feel so angry.

That was the price of my safety.

That was the price of help.

That was the price of not being ignored.

I got good god damn return on all the putting out I did. I don’t know a more attentive husband. But I’m having trouble bearing it.

I think I should schedule some pushing-my-luck dates. I really should. Only doing sanctioned stuff is going to piss me all the way off. Ok, I’m only going to do sanctioned stuff. But I’m going to do some stuff that I can only do this month that will be off the table going forward.

I’m so frustrated with trying to be good and still failing so much.

Noah is giving me a way to blow off steam. If I don’t use it and I stay mad at him… that’s shitty too.

I’m feeling… like I already used up Noah’s tolerance and I don’t get more. This coming month I’ll play a lot but almost entirely under Noah’s watchful eye. I’m feeling pissy and whiny about it but I know I earned it.

Noah says I don’t think he has an inner life and I think the problem is actually worse than that. I know he has one. I’ve been restricted by it for years. I’m pissy about it. Which really sucks of me because I am far more controlling than him.

Noah’s upset that he feels he needs to watch what I’m saying to someone. But I apparently can’t trust that boundaries are in place six years after setting them.

Complicated.

I have never continued to slip with a given person after years of reminding. I slip with other people in other ways… yes.

Complicated.

I’m not in a position to be holier than thou. But Jesus Fucking Christ if I turn around and observe the boundaries Noah is setting, sorta, for a while, then tell the person “Oh I think it’s been long enough.”

I’m not the only asshole in this relationship. I’m not ready to take all the blame for fucking up lately.

I’m not actually going to get much of a Mardi Gras “month”. I’m sticking to stuff that is well within Noah’s comfort and I’m not pushing boundaries. I’ve done enough of that for a while. I’m not off leash. I’m pretty firmly on leash in what I’m doing and I’m feeling cranky about that because the attitude is that I’m getting to do whatever I want.

No. I get to do what you are comfortable with. That’s not just because of Noah. Other people have their own boundaries too.

But I’m feeling pissy.

Everyone is going in their “safe for Noah” box and I’m just fucking cranky about it.

Which sucks of me. I’m being outrageously, disgustingly selfish here.

I know.

What an ungrateful bitch. I have quite a few dates planned. I’m bitching that they all exist in the acceptable zone.

Grow up, Krissy.

I feel so tired of being good.

Yes, sweet submissive, I’ll be taking a lot of frustration out on you. I’m sure you’ll love it.

I want to go to a party alone, do drugs, and fuck whoever walks by.

I used to go to sex parties where there were pitch black rooms. When you walk in you are basically consenting for people to attempt to initiate sex and it is up to you to go as far as you want. I always brought condoms in with me.

I want to crawl into someone’s head. During sex with strangers I like to ask personal questions about their childhoods, religion, friends, hobbies…

I don’t like boundaries.

I want to be pushed and have to say no. I want to say yes. I want to try and find out, “Whoa not for me. But thanks!”

And I really don’t see it happening. Not for a whole laundry list of reasons. Valid, good reasons that are pissing me off anyway.

I’m so fucking tired of being good. That is what it all comes down to. I don’t want to be good.

Honestly it is kinda like slapping my daughter. I did it one time. I didn’t do it hard. I did it when I felt completely out of modeling good.

That road trip was too long.

I didn’t hurt her or damage her. But I fucked up. I wasn’t good. It’s been a lot easier to be good since then. I don’t think I need to do that dance over and over with her. I think I will break in other areas. I think I found that limit within myself. Hitting her makes me feel like a steaming pile of dog shit. I don’t need that feeling again.

But sex with other people. It’s like pizza. Even when it’s not that good… it’s good. So this is not the same thing as slapping her. This is so much more potentially toxic to my whole life.

I think with my cunt.

I know there is an element of wanting to bury this in wanting a baby. But only a very small piece. Mostly I just want a tiny head nestled to my breast again so bad I ache. Attachment Parenting is giving me the mandatory reason to bond and learn how to work through conflict. I have different things to learn from each stage.

My Eldest Child is starting to pull away. Barely. She’s reaching both hands back to hold mine as she walks away so I’m kinda being dragged with her. But it is starting.

My day needs me.

Hands hurt wicked bad. Want. To. Type.

Made painting progress, a little bit at least. Need to do more. So much more. Ow.

Tired. Whole body hurts. Hurts like spiking up to 7 hurts. It sucks.

I should water the yard.

I’m struggling with wanting more pot than I want to be doing. I’m trying to titrate down because I can’t bring it on the cruise. I’m crossing international borders: no drugs. I’d like to be sober for a week or more before I go so that I’m not doing all of the adjusting on the plane/cruise. My current usage rate may have me running out a solid two weeks before the trip. Whine.

If I take a solid month off of pot… that might help with tolerance. But I’m going to be kinda psycho. Wheeeee. I anticipate more of a weight drop. I wonder how low I will get this time. I’m at 155. Normally that’s a weight where I look hollowed out and skinny and my pants fall off. This time my hips are spread wide and I have clear extra fat.

I feel very weird about my body. I truly do not want to be a thin person and I’m heading that way.

I was 145 lbs at age 14. I saw the upper 140’s briefly in my early 20’s when I was very sick.

I have liked being fat.

I was 165 lbs by age 16. I’ve been much happier there.

But 185 lbs is my favorite. I’m barely fat but I count. I like how I look.

Sigh.

I’m having feelings about this Mardi Gras month and the fact that it is actually being quite limited by Noah’s boundaries. I… don’t have a way on option to actually go be a shithead this month even though that was kinda the point. I’m kinda heading back towards “being good”. We are going to do a lot of group play.

I’m really looking forward to kicking the shit out of my submissive. That’s going to be a rollicking good time. He is very generously offering to let me take my frustration out on him. I should say yes.

I have a whole shiny box of scalpels. I may not be able to have everything I want in life. What I get to have is pretty fucking mind blowing. He wants me to carve my name into him. Surely I can find a way to make a buzz from that last a while. I mean oh my god.

My life is unreal. I need to revel in gratitude instead of being a pissy bitch.

Noah is initiating a lot more hypnosis. Which is a big deal after this many years of asking. I think it helps with my sleep trouble. I think it will help with pregnancy and labor. I begged. He didn’t want to practice with me last time. He took no initiation at all during labor and just… kinda went limp. It sucked. He promised to help. Then… he got scared and quiet. It was shitty.

He’s… setting the stage long before pregnancy even gets started this time. That’s a big deal.

We are talking intently about the M/s stuff. That’s been on the back burner for ten fucking years. It is hard to keep waiting. But I don’t want my kids growing up with a subservient mother. Why do I want this relationship dynamic so bad? I just do. I want to belong to. I want to have to follow orders. I do. Not just anyone’s orders.

Just Noah’s.

Even when I resent the shit out of them.

But as a mom I don’t think I should do as I’m told. I think I should stand up and say no to things that are wrong.

So it’s complicated.

My last yee haw for a while. I’m having ambivalent feelings. It isn’t what it was advertised as for a lot of reasons. But it has to be good enough. I have to get my attitude in line. This is what I get for filling my bucket for a long time.

We are going to keep negotiating and I am going to fall in line. Because that’s the deal. I’ve been a very disobedient pet for a while here. But I need to get back on leash.

That’s the deal.

I am feeling self recriminating. So I had self hating thoughts about how I could go validate that I’m a piece of shit. (There are after all websites that spend a lot of time talking about how shitty I am. I stopped checking a long time ago to see how the conversation is ongoing. I just know that it… probably is.)

But I laughed to myself. No. I’m not going to look. They are entitled to their opinions. Just like I’m entitled to sit here in my garage and shake my head and call them motherfuckers. It’s ok.

I am at a magical place when it comes to the intersection of privilege. It’s really fucking hard for someone to hurt me. So it doesn’t matter if they hate me. They can’t take away anything I care about. If I had their positive regard I would probably dislike myself.

I’d rather know that I’m doing the absolute best I can given the hand I’ve been dealt in this life. It has been quite a god damn adventure. I have seen a lot of things and been a lot of places. And I don’t plan to stop having adventures any year soon. Well… 2017 we are staying home. Even though it means I won’t be in the direct path of the solar eclipse.

I’m tired.

I adventured. I adventured far and wide and nearby. I adventured with my kids and I adventured on my own sexually.

Ok. I can stay home again.

Things will be different this time. Even though my shrink believes that it is just how life works that people must be alone or at a job… bite me. We often have differences of opinion and I can cope with that. A therapist doesn’t exist to tell you what to think. They exist to help you figure out what you think. Sometimes you do that by disagreeing with advice.

I am a highly resourced individual. Don’t underestimate me.

For one thing I have a charming next door neighbor who is house bound. Ha. Our kids play frequently.

I won’t be alone this time. I am connected to my neighborhood now and I wasn’t during my previous pregnancies. I met people with talking kids.

I needed chaperones.

I needed them to define my role with people. I know that is chicken shit and I should just exude these boundaries on my own but I don’t.

God I love home schooling. It is a way to hide myself in plain sight in the world. In relationship to my kids I know how to keep myself safe. Because their safety is my primary goal. I will walk away from escalations. I will defuse when I want to engage. I will back off and retreat. I… don’t really do that for myself.

I will god damn keep my body safe until they are adults. I owe them that.

Which is complicated. This need to see myself in relationship to other people at all times in order manifest things in my behavior… that’s really hard. That involves trying to consciously change my reactions and behaviors at full speed.

I worry about the amount of suppression in my life. It means my uhh more instinctive reactions pop out every so often.

I assume this works this way for everyone. This is the development of the Superego. (I know Freud is a quack but I like the frame of his theory enough that I continue to kind of use his words.)

My problem is that I’m not willing to be conservative. I don’t stay well within the boundaries in the obviously acceptable areas. I need to find out how fucking far the boundaries go. I have to know.

What will happen if I  _____________?

I have to know.

It is 7am. Today I should call contractors, paint my kitchen, talk to my neighbor, and go to martial arts.

No more typing.

If I am going to stick to boundaries better than I have been then I need a variety of plans in place for how to handle various problems.

Do you know how I handled my overwhelming anxiety during both previous pregnancies? I spent 8-12 hours a day researching. I spent an obscene amount of time bonding with other nervous parents on mothering.com. (Some of whom have gone on to hate-follow me for years. Cheers, motherfuckers.) I actually met the Bonus Mama and the oldest Bonus Kid through mothering. So it wasn’t all bad. The wonderful lady I stayed with in Duluth was from mothering. I lent my timeshare points to a mama from New Zealand because that was the only way they could come to Disneyland. I’m not sad about my time there… but my time on that forum is over.

Do you know what I can’t do to manage my feelings this time? Type all day. I’ve fucked up my arms. I need to work on healing damage and not causing any new damage so I can god damn hold my baby.

I’m going to have to schedule in person time with people. Luckily some folks have signed on to the Wonderland calendar and maybe I’ll see people at drop in hours. We’ll see. I think I should start asking for video-date-chats with friends and putting those on my calendar for a couple of times per week. It doesn’t have to be a given person signing on for lots of time. Luckily I know a fuck ton of people who love me.

Goodness I’m blessed.

Noah is talking about setting up a schedule with me. There’s a bunch of stuff we need to be more serious about doing. We need to get our exercise to a more regular and predictable level. We need to be stretching more. We really both do better when we meditate daily; it helps.

We need to get our sleep cycle more regular. Pregnancy is going to be rough if I’m this under slept. I’m talking to a doctor about a sleep study on Friday. I’m also seeing the high risk groino on Friday. Friday is a frightfully busy day. It goes as so: general doctor to ask about sleep study and introduce various complex issues (Fremont), acupuncture (Milpitas), groino (Fremont), drop kids off (Oakland), Dark Garden fitting for Noah (San Francisco), Dark Garden fitting for Krissy (San Francisco), date with a sweet sweet Deity (Fremont). Driving starts at 8am and ends around 6pm. The date starts at 7pm.

Woof. I didn’t really think about how intense that would all be. I… I am not smart in my scheduling. But! It’s all stuff that Needs Be Done.

Once I see the groino Noah is going to schedule surgery. Eeep. This feels so insane. Why are we having more kids? Because we want to so so so so so so bad.

As my (current) Youngest Child says, “We want another bundle of joy.” The kid beams when saying this. My children believe that they have been a source of joy and happiness in life. They perceive that having more people around like them will be a blessing.

I couldn’t agree more.

We’ll figure it out. Honestly there has been some interesting movement in conversation in our house over the past few days. I know y’all are only getting some high/low lights.

I feel… more settled and ready to step back into the traces. I have my lovely Mardi Gras coming up. I only have three, maybe four solo dates scheduled for the month. Otherwise we are having a pretty intense amount of group sex. This’ll be great. Then we go on the cruise. Then he comes home to surgery.

Oh.

Ok. Yeah. I can step back into the traces then. I’m getting some exquisitely clear guidance on how I will have to tow the line going forward to earn the future privileges I want. Noah is consciously making choices about not being more aggressive about stepping out right now because he knows he would make mistakes and we don’t need to try and fix them right now. That’s… awfully generous of him.

I’m feeling magnanimous.

No… I’m feeling like I’ve fucked up a really lot lately and Noah has been quite patient as I’ve been a selfish shit head.

It is helping that Noah has said repeatedly that this is so hard because it is such a departure from normal. Normally I’m rock solid with my boundaries and that’s why the last few months have been so hard. I don’t do this to him much.

Oh. So it isn’t that I need to live up to a completely unattainable perfection. I need to… go back to holding boundaries more like usual instead of being so fucking muddy. But I needed things to change and I don’t know how to make things change without breaking things.

Our boundaries are not where they were six months ago. They have changed dramatically. There has been a lot of push and pull to get to where we are today. I would say that mostly… I’m to a place I’m thrilled about. I can kiss my friends again. We can have group sex. (No promises on during pregnancy.) We can do bdsm play with friends.

We have opened up a lot. But we are figuring out where our limits are on that. Outside solo dating freaks us both the fuck out. We have a loosely stated goal of re-discussing that issue around year twenty, but it’s not a good thing to bring up before then because we freak out. Group dates. Group dates sound awesome.

We aren’t polyamorous.

Also, I was doing some of that charming carping that I do so often and Noah listened and…. I think we have found a positive solution to one of our ongoing marital sexual disputes. For a solid decade now we have tracked our sex life. The big variable we haven’t ever kept much track of… me getting off. Even though I am incredibly orgasm focused. We can add a new data point to our records. That’ll uhh, maybe help both of us recognize when things are and aren’t going so hot there.

Kinda a simple solution, really. Plus if Noah is counting how many times he gets me off… he works harder. Bonus.

And dinner is on the table.

When I use the word veto it means a complete ban of a person. I think there is a big difference between asking for a break, or asking for stringent boundaries and… vetoing a person.

I have vetoed two people. I did so because the first person was specifically telling Noah, “Lie to Krissy” and… I don’t play like that. The second person was sending Noah emails telling him to drag me to the hospital for a D&C after my miscarriage “whether I liked it or not”. You don’t get to try and tell someone to manage me like that and touch my life. Fuck all the way off.

If you are someone who believes my consent about what happens to my body is negligible and I should be managed by people who know better… Fuck all the way off.

But it’s looking like I may be earning my first veto from Noah. Because *I* said shit I shouldn’t say. Not the person. Me.

It’s feeling different. It’s not the person’s fault. It’s not about their behavior. It’s about me and my shitty boundaries. I will accept it if it decided because that’s the deal. But I’ll feel bad for the rest of my life that it is my fault this happened and not theirs.

I’m on five week timer. If I can get my shit together, maybe no veto. Maybe. If I don’t get my fucking mouth under control… if I don’t exercise better boundaries period….

I hurt myself.

It has been kind of weird to like Lemonade so much and know that… I’m the problem in my relationship and I have no moral high ground upon which to stand. I’m the one hurting myself. I’m the one who should be sorry.

Fuck.

Why is it so much easier to have boundaries with some people than others? If I knew the answer to that I’d probably be able to get rich.

Noah speculates that part of the attraction is that I’m not being held to my normal boundaries. I’m sure that factors in. I have agreed to a lot of fucking boundaries and they are chafing. Are they chafing? I don’t even know. They are and they aren’t. I… I feel guilty because I know that when I step back on the pregnancy-nausea-roller coaster I’m not going to feel like my boundaries chafe in the same way. I feel like I want to go hide from this biological imperative to hunt for new partners.

I’ve always been allowed to love people. There were just boundaries around kissing, sex, and bdsm. Those boundaries happened because we are assholes to each other when it comes to watching boundaries when we have new partners. It isn’t just me. One of us will do a shitty thing and be taken to task only to find five minutes later that the one taking to task has also done the shitty thing. Like, right now.

We do this to each other.

Unless we are both actively involved in the conversation to keep beating the drum of our boundaries… the other kinda loses track of them.

So we closed down so we would stay married because neither of us feel good about this up and down.

Then I didn’t handle that permanently. I’m not good at keeping it in my pants. I’m a complicated person. Having sex with only Noah for the rest of my life is a fairly narrow slice of my sexuality. That’s not true for him. It is true that he has interests I don’t share. But not that many.

Noah is rightly defending his end of enmeshment right now. We need to have a whole lot more experiences together because we still suck at maintaining a model in our heads of what our partner would want in a given situation.

Why do I need such an extensive cast of people in my life? I really have a somewhat obscenely large cast of characters. Because everyone fulfills different needs. Everyone has different things to offer. Jenny and Sarah are not interchangeable. 

I know that Noah is the base layer of my life. Every other layer has to fit around him for the rest of my life. I didn’t just agree to be his wife. From day one the plan was to work towards a Master/slave dynamic. That… changes a lot of how I ought be negotiating. I know I’m in countdown days till I’m under contract. That’s going to change what I can go out and get in my life.

I almost sorta feel like I’m trying to stack the deck because over time I’m going to be restricted more. People who are grandfathered in will be important. New people won’t be possible anymore. Noah’s really rather out of patience with me.

My luck is a bruised and battered thing from how much I’ve pushed it lately.

I’m… having internal conflict around the fact that I’m resetting the clock on doing incest research full time by at least ten years. That means another whole decade of my life where what I am is a wife and mother.

Why in the fuck do I have such a diverse supportive cast? Because I need to have a lot more fucking people perceive me as something other than just a wife and mother. My shrink told me that other people get to have that by having a job.

Hey, the vast majority of the people I love I don’t fuck. I’m not making sex my job. But connecting with people kind of is.

I’m having this really strong internal struggle with the idea of appropriate vs inappropriate vs not inappropriate but not right for me.

What does inappropriate fucking mean anyway? It means “I don’t like it.” There is no such thing as a universal way of viewing anything. There is no such thing as a universal right way to be a human being.

Appropriate is about “it works for me”. Or about “it fits conditions”. Who sets the conditions? That’s a fucking long digression and my arms hurt.

I pick people because there is something I need to learn there. I always justify this in retrospect and can’t explain it while it is happening. I’m a shithead like that.

I think I could sleep again. I should try.

One of these days when I’m bored I should go back through this tag and clean up these entries. Sigh. Fingers tired of pressing buttons.

I’m addicted to love. I seriously am. If I have a dominant addiction in this life that drives me… it is to the need to feel that cycle of falling in love.

I can maintain it with many people. I am fully present with whoever is in the room even as I have a fully fledged monsoon of feelings for more people than I care to count who aren’t in the room.

My shrink says, “You are very polyamorous for all you say you aren’t. That “love” bit… you aren’t just open.”

I love my friends. I love hard with an intensity and devotion that lasts for years, decades if people let me. I rarely end a relationship and never without cause. The cause usually has to be pretty extreme. I mean, I fade out of social groups and lose contact because of that… but that’s not severing a relationship.

I do move on pretty easily. I’m restless and I don’t settle well. I am shocked I’ve stayed in one house for ten years.

Want to know how I find out people don’t read that carefully? I talk about them a lot and they miss most of it. Hilarious. Deity was all, “Wait… I was in the doghouse?” My therapist was worried about the intensity of my NRE with you, yes. She thought it was inappropriate given that she wants me to be a swinger. She has strong opinions about what is appropriate for my marriage and emotional connections outside the marriage are a problem in her mind.

Noah has varying opinions. Mostly what he’s saying is, “You’ve picked really good guys.” Yeah. I have. I have pretty good taste… much to my shock and amazement…

I think it is because of my early disloyalty. I tried so many people I know better how to go for nicer people. I’ve dated assholes. I’m good. No more.

I really like the people I have in my life. I like how they treat me.

I think this falling in love business is partially a thing because I used to go through these reuniting/falling in love/leaving cycles with my mom. I was always trying to get the spark back and failing. So I’d find someone else to fall in love with for a while to help me deal with the fact that she couldn’t really love me all the time.

I’m not blaming my behavior on my mom. I’m saying I think this pattern started early and it was initially related to my mom.

I’m trying to get a handle on the scope of the problem, not blame someone else. There are pieces of this I should probably work on and pieces of it that are absolutely integral to my core personality and I don’t want to change it. I like that I am a much more loving person than average.

Let’s be clear here: me bringing a friend from out of state to stay in my house for almost three weeks while we intensely bond and talk about deep intimate topics… that’s an emotional affair too.

I was talking to my shrink about the challenging parts of having longer term house guests and she said, “Oh have you learned your lesson now about inviting strangers into your home? You’ll never do this again, right?”

I said: “Oh no! I will totally do this again! I have learned so much! I feel so honored. I’m having so much fun. This is a wonderful experience.”

She blinked at me.

What? That’s not weird, right?

I am absolutely going to invite strangers into my home so we can bond again. Duh. It’s awesome.

I feel like such an asshole. I told Noah: ok fine. I won’t see the Quiet One because I’m not allowed to add another person who wants solo dates to the roster right now. So I’m going to fill up Mardi Gras with the folks you don’t mind. Folks who don’t mind group play. Folks who are allowed to be a major focus of my sexual life going forward because Noah doesn’t find them threatening.

He did say that he might ask for a break from (insert name) after Mardi Gras for a time. That seems… understandable.

I told him I would like to ask for another Mardi Gras someday. He says wait till he sees how he feels when this is over. Then we’ll decide if it is five, ten, or more years away. Or never. We’ll see.

That seems fair.

My shrink says I ask way too much of Noah in asking him to tolerate my promiscuity and I need to work harder on making friends.

I said, “Time’s up. Talk to you later.”

I have more friends than anyone I know. I love you all. I’m grateful for you. The intensity I like… people don’t do that without fucking, mostly. Noah proposed that we could look around the asexual community for an intense, drama ridden emotional affair.

Err, that actually sounds fun.

I am going to have a good Mardi Gras.

My friendships go in boxes and I’m not the only one who gets to decide the categorization. I signed on to an enmeshed marriage. I have to consider Noah’s feelings. Even though sometimes I kind of want a vacation from that responsibility (see earlier cheating and bad faith negotiating).

Which isn’t fair and I know it sucks.

Noah likes to talk about how we picked the high intensity version of parenting and given how much we like our kids…. it is worth the outpouring of energy. We’ve made fantastic little people. And we really want to make more.

We picked the high intensity version of marriage, too. Given that I left on the road trip 13 months ago… it’s not a stretch to say I’ve been “on vacation” from my marriage for over a year now.

I need to change that. Noah has been more than fucking patient. He has been supportive and mostly of good cheer in his interactions with me. Because I need that from him.

He really needs some payback for that. I gave him nine really good years then he got a whole shitty year and counting. That sucks.

I’m kinda a shitty wife.

fuck.

Noah is afraid I will do what I did with my Owner. Where I was there… then I stopped paying attention and I wasn’t. Reasonable fear. I kinda think I have more to tie me to this life. But those ties haven’t stopped me from being a selfish asshole in a lot of ways.

Noah and I were talking about the need to reinvent ourselves. When I need to express myself in a different way to the people around me because I have changed I usually need to find some kind of new relationship (or several) to help me through that metamorphosis. I’m not self driven, only I kinda am? I know how to hunt for the support I need.

I am very good at reinventing myself in front of someone at speed using only carefully selected stories from my life.

My life is complex. Long time readers who are friends tell me it is interesting watching how I tell the stories in different ways over time. I’m sure it is. I definitely drift in my interpretation of the “facts”. Who is to blame? What was I feeling? Oh my opinions drift. Which is part of why I record it. So if later there is a major rewriting in my head folks around me can say, “Whoa there.”

Useful to outsource your memory like this.

I think I am too impulsive/compulsive to be able to pull off life long monogamy. I think that journey is not for me. But how can I go on this journey and stop being such an asshole to Noah? And he’s an asshole right back. Let’s be clear. We suck at being polyamorous together. When we date we are so rude. It’s like we lose the ability to hold the mental model of what is ok for one another when we start reinventing ourselves for a new love.

But we don’t do it at sex parties. Cause we are there together to do our thing. And I think I do less of it on group dates? I know he does.

My shrink gave me the name of bars for picking up women for threesomes. Because that is less emotionally fraught than what I do in her opinion.

We are going out of town in a few hours. I’m not bringing my computer and I need to mostly stay off my phone. My hands god damn hurt. We are going to Santa Barbara and Monterey. Noah is going to have his first days at the home office (in Santa Barbara) and we are breaking up the journey home.

My life is blessed beyond all reasonable expectation and measure. I’m a lucky person.

Why am I so ungrateful? It isn’t about ungrateful. It is about insatiable. It is about no end of want and need.

I am grateful.

But how many hours a day can I fucking perform grateful?

ugh

Right now there are a bunch of dates in my calendar with ?’s next to them because I offered dates to folks. When I get responses to my emails there will be another round of emails.

Fine. If I’m mostly going to have to calm the fuck down after Mardi Gras, let’s do this.

It’s like the good old days.

It is hilarious to me how I can carry this glee and anticipation and joy about what I will share right along side all the wicked grief for what I can’t have.

I’m a complicated woman.

On the drive up I listened to this song on repeat. On the way home I listened to this song.

I know I need to turn to Noah. I know I owe him that. But what do I owe me? I think I owe me learning how to be a good wife to the best husband I know. The degree of guilt and shame I will carry over letting him down cannot be overstated.

I god damn owe Noah.

I need to fall in love with Noah over and over.

And I’ll still have my emotional affairs. But they can’t make Noah feel like he is dying.

I think what I have with Sarah is basically an emotional affair with occasional play. I think I have a platonic long-term partnership with the Bonus Parents. We are sharing a lot of life-work. Because support is awesome.

I mean… I could demean my relationship with Sarah and say we are “friends”. But I have a lot of fucking friends. I’ll tell you that this is special. We have worked very consciously to grow into the shape we need to be to be friends. It hasn’t been easy or natural a lot of the time and we’ve fucked up. But we keep trying because it’s a really god damn intense relationship.

And Noah isn’t real interested in asking me to change this. So yeah, I’ll keep having my emotional affairs. I’m not listing them all here. Just, can’t. That’s too complicated. But there are the really major characters. Sarah has been in my life for as long as Noah. We met at right around the same time. All because of this dude who liked to date the same girl as my Owner. Life is funny. (Not that I’m saying that this dude chased girls because my Owner liked them. But they had an uncanny pattern through multiple cities in different states.)

And to the best of my knowledge none of the connections there are very active any more with that man. I think everyone I am close to who knew him only knew him temporarily. Long enough to find me.

I met a lot of people in the last six months of my relationship with my Owner right as I turned 23. A surprising number of them are still in my life. Sarah. Noah. Daddy.

Random aside from couples therapy. I was talking about how hard of a time I have had with how vanilla the sex in our marriage has been. (It’s complicated.) The therapist nodded along. Then Noah mentioned Daddy/daughter play. The therapist kinda whipped his neck to look at me and said, “You do Daddy/daughter play and you think your sex isn’t kinky?” (Or some variation of that. I’m mis-phrasing slightly because I can’t remember.)  I did that duck my head thing and was all, “It’s all about perspective… for me it’s kinda barely hitting the scale.” His eyes went wide.

What? That’s not weird, right?

I’m an extreme mother fucker, ok?

Where’s the degradation? Where’s the crying? How can you even tell you are having sex?! I mean really.

A little Daddy/daughter play during sex doesn’t even feel kinky to me. Your Mileage May Vary.

I’ve kinda had an unusual life. A little bit.

No… I don’t get to have a permanent hall pass to stop and sleep with someone on the way home from therapy. Even if those hours are covered by babysitting while he’s working. Sigh.

Yeah… I know.

Sigh.

I could be a lot of things in life. I chafe at the boundaries and limitations of the life I chose. I don’t want to make a different choice… but I chafe anyway.

I’m a brat.

In retrospect, even the agony of arguing for the past few months… it was fun. I don’t want to do it again any time soon. But I think we learned a lot. We managed to change things in our marriage in ways I needed them to change. We started a lot of kinds of play and interacting I’ve been asking for over a long time period.

It’s complicated. I’m not sure I done wrong. Not completely. Maybe my asshole tendencies serve good purpose? At least this is what I try to tell myself.

Hey, we grow…

I really should try to sleep a little more before we get up to go on this drive. It’s a long drive. A 4.5-5 hour drive. And we want Noah to be to work by about 10. We are leaving at 4:30. And I mean leaving. I should add blankets and pillows to the car while the other grown ups are taking kid loads. *note to self

We should stop and get gas and ice on the way out of town. We don’t have much ice.

I’m not actually trying to justify my asshole behavior, for the record. I know I’m being awful. I’m being selfish in a short term way instead of my normal long term way. No one is perfect…

I needed things to change. When I need things to change often I start breaking shit. Noah is scared because it looks too much to him like our marriage is the next thing I need to break.

I really don’t think so. Especially not if we can have lovely periodic group dates with friends and go to sex parties and in five or ten years I can have another Mardi Gras (maybe–if this goes well).

I mean good grief. How much can a slutty person ask of their spouse? That’s damn generous.

It isn’t polyamory. But we never said we were. We have stayed pretty close to that. I lose my shit. It’s not ok for me to date and for me to require him not to date. So here we are.

Noah points out that he probably could deal with polyamory but it would mean ending the super enmeshed thing we have and him seriously putting that energy into other people.

Oh fuck no.

When Noah drops his mental model of me he starts making choices that hurt me a lot. Ditto. It’s complicated.

I can get another 45 min of sleep, surely…

Goodnight. I’ll talk to y’all in a few days.

I went to an open relationship discussion last week and the topic was on “Safer Spaces” and what that means to people. Ok, sure. That could have been interesting. I don’t know how much to say without breaking confidentiality. But I’m going to say a few things.

The small group discussion I was part of was interesting, I think mostly because I was the only full blooded white person so we talked about actual unsafe situations and how to cope. Noah says his subgroup… didn’t go well.

Noah is not exactly Mr. Social Justice Warrior or anything. He’s a rich white dude. But even he was cringing at the level of entitlement and cluelessness.

The proposal was made that safer spaces aren’t good spaces because not everyone is supposed to talk in every safer space. Sometimes het cis white men aren’t supposed to talk. Instead we should have “brave spaces” where everyone is allowed to talk and people just have to put their big kid panties on and deal.

I kind of went hot and said, “That’s a way to privilege the voices of people who already have the most power and ensure that underserved populations never feel safe.”

If I as a rich white person felt this was not a safe place… well…

I don’t want to go to a “brave space” where I’m going to have to listen to the usual opinions that make me very uncomfortable. I hear them all the time. Like, I don’t feel like I get away from those opinions much at all. I go to safer spaces to get away from the opinions that make me uncomfortable all day long.

I said that saying that all voices have to be equally heard at all times is like saying All Lives Matter. If you truly believe that all lives matter you will bloody well say Black Lives Matter because they are the ones in crisis.

I left feeling like I don’t ever need to go back. Which probably isn’t a fair evaluation of the group in general. But Noah and I left feeling like… yeah… we don’t need to spend more energy there.

Which is kind of a bummer. Talking about relationship stuff is tricky and hard. I’d like to have more spaces to do that. Not that space.

There are lots of times and spaces where I am supposed to be quiet. That’s ok. I make other people hella uncomfortable and sometimes they don’t want to deal with that.

I think that is just.

Why is Noah worth so much? Why is Noah worth not dating other people? I need to remind myself of that right now.

Noah is my best friend. Noah is the best friend I have ever had. Noah pays attention to me at the expense of having almost anything else in his life because I need so much attention that he just doesn’t have a lot going spare after me.

It is partially my fault that Noah doesn’t have friends. I wear him the fuck out.

Why Noah? Because when sex with Noah is on it is the best of my life. When it isn’t ok I get very cranky and that’s maybe not fair. It isn’t always Noah’s fault. Sometimes he is being an inconsiderate bastard, yes, but as he points out it has improved a lot.

No he hasn’t gotten to perfect yet. But he’s come a long way.

He really has improved: in play, in sex, in taking care of me, in being supportive… in every area. He has not slacked off. Not on anything. Not really. He’s not perfect. He fucks up. He hurts me. But it isn’t because he doesn’t care and it isn’t because he isn’t trying.

It’s because he came into this kind of a broken mess too.

Noah was broken long before I met him. Noah came into this marriage believing he wasn’t really worthy of love too. Noah spent most of his life feeling unloved and not accepted too. Only he did it in just a few places with just a few people so he calcified differently.

Noah didn’t grow up with the eternal promise of hope in new people. I did. New people mean different things to me than to him. Noah grew up in a small xenophobic town where he was hated and reviled. He was different all his life and they knew it and hated him for it.

But I love him for it. And that has allowed him to blossom.

Noah is a much bigger (I don’t mean in size) person than he was when I met him. He’s focused and determined. He is centered and more happy.

I am too. Noah gave me a center. He gave me a home and safety and being known. No one had ever wanted to know me before Noah.

I mean, I had friends and lovers. Don’t get me wrong. People “knew” me. But when I wrote my first book and old friends read it… most of them were shocked. Which means they had known me for a very long time without knowing much about me. I’m hard to know.

Why am I stepping out? It’s complicated. Part of it has to do with trying to accommodate a role I can’t actually sustain without outside assistance. I can’t be just “on” all the time sexually in my day to day life. Cleaning my house and playing with my kids just doesn’t do that for me.

Hunting does.

But hunting is hurting Noah so very much. He’s scared. Hunting is all about enjoying NRE. (New Relationship Energy)  For all that I may burn with the energy of the sun… I can’t actually shine on many people very well.

Maybe I’m more like my mother than I’d hope. Only I can manage to take care of more than one child at a time. I’m sure I’m not being fair to my mother.

I’m not really being fair to anyone lately.

Why this marriage?

Because I think that if I manage to learn how to get my needs met and be a genuinely good partner to Noah I will be a better person than I can manage any other way. I think Noah offers me more impetus for changing than anyone else. I think that Noah is the only person who is going to spend the rest of my life gazing at me in adoration while saying, “You are awesome. Now get better.”

If you can’t look back on yourself eighteen months ago and say, “Wow I really sucked. You aren’t trying hard enough.”

That. The fact that it has been true. It has stayed true through ten years of marriage. If we look back on any given eighteen month period… we see dramatic improvement.

Do you know how amazing that is to me, Noah? That we both just… keep doing it. Because we stand near one another and ruthlessly dissect one another up one side and down the other. You are awesome. Now get better.

It’s a fuck ton of pressure. This shit is intense.

And we do it for and with each other. Pretty much every step of the way.

Why this marriage? Because being Krissy Gibbs has been the absolute happiest I have been. This identity, this relationship is what gave me wings. R doesn’t want me to feel like I owe Noah anything and I get that. I totally support her having that opinion.

I owe Noah a lot. And he owes me a lot. And we like it that way.

When you are constantly trying to get better, you need to have support in changing. Support in changing is usually not comfortable. It usually fucking sucks.

I don’t know how to motivate someone to change gently. If you have tips, I’ll listen. I’m kinda like an anvil dropping on your head. Alright biotech. This is how it needs to be.

I’m that subtle.

Time to go again.

I woke up at about 2:30 in the morning. Noah woke up a few minutes after me. We’ve been up talking since. So four hours of talking this morning. I told y’all we’d get up to at least 200 hours of negotiating on this. At the rate of 2-8 hours/day… we are getting there.

I can see what Noah means when he says I’m killing my marriage. I don’t think it is working quite how he thinks, but I think it is happening. I have watched Noah cry more in the past few months than I think he has cried in the whole rest of his life put together.

It isn’t just me who is hurting. I am hurting Noah.

I have a list of done me wrongs. I have things that have been happening for years that hurt me very much.

I need support. It isn’t fair that I need more than Noah can provide or that my friends can easily provide.

It sounds like my choices are get the support I want and deal with Noah dating and having NRE and he gets to go be all lovey dovey with someone else while I’m pregnant, sick, and miserable…

Or I choose to not get enough support. Those are my choices.

There isn’t really an option C.

Given that part of what Noah is saying when he asks me to get pregnant again is, “Maybe we can be better to each other this time” because I have acres of bitterness over the amount of support I got during the first four pregnancies….

Choosing to shove him towards other people is going to hurt me. I’m going to end up spending my entire pregnancy cut up. Because people saying they will babysit me during Noah’s dates…

That’s not going to work. Because the idea that I would turn to someone else when I am grieving like that is so laughable it’s not worth bringing up. I will tell you to get the fuck out of my house so I can deal with my feelings. No you can’t fucking hug me are you fucking crazy?

I don’t think that I am ever going to feel safe enough depending on someone else if what I need is cutting. No one else is there enough. You can’t be. You will let me down and then I will be screwed so I’m better off not depending on you.

I started this because yes, I felt like I was going to explode. Noah says I said I felt like I was going to die. I believe I said it. I don’t know that I meant soon. I did/do feel like I’m going to explode and do things I won’t like.

My life is very carefully constrained. Yes Noah, I know yours is too. I don’t think you are starting off from a place where you are as prone to go make bad decision after bad decision after bad decision like I do. My life is differently constrained.

When I feel like I’m going to explode, what does it mean? It means I think I’m going to cheat because I can’t be good anymore. It means I can’t be good anymore and I’d rather lose control and go fuck people then lose control and be a raging bitch at home.

I’m scared of how much pain I can bear. Because my tolerances go up and down and when my tolerance is up I sign on for a lot of pain. When my tolerance goes down I’m trapped.

We tolerate group play without feeling like we need to pull away and go off by ourselves to die. We enjoy group play. It doesn’t feel existentially terrifying in the same way.

I think that even though I want to quite a bit, I shouldn’t go sleep with the Quiet One tomorrow. It would be our first time. It would be bonding. It would increase the chance that I would hurt him really badly along with hurting Noah really badly. Yeah, I’m afraid that needs to be a no.

Shit.

Because if Noah goes off and does the NRE thing…

I am not going to bear that well. I’m just not. Let’s be realistic here. And if that happens when I’m pregnant and already disordered and fragile?

Let’s think about how well that has the potential to go and think about how poorly that has the potential to go.

How fucking well am I going to handle my only safety in the entire world going off to love on someone else while I’m pregnant?

Will I or the baby live another nine months? Will I live through that long enough to dump a third kid on him before offing myself so he can raise the baby with his new partner?

I honestly can’t say. Which makes it a stupid position to put myself into.

Why do we want this baby so much? We keep talking about it. Because we do. Because we look at the two kids we have and we both feel like that is the pinnacle good experience of our lives. These are the best things we’ve ever done or made or been near. We could have more of that? Please. Yes. Please.

What does that mean about my sex life? Oh it’s complicated.

Am I going to explode still? I don’t know. Pregnancy will change the hormone balance again. To what? Fuck if I know.

What I know is I can’t go through a lot more mornings where Noah sobs on my chest and tells me that his god is telling him that he isn’t good enough and it is killing him.

I like being Noah’s religion. If you are going to be a god you need to take it seriously and behave honorably and I am not doing so.

I don’t think that lifelong monogamy is possible for me. Which doesn’t mean I’m allowed to date.

I’m not polyamorous. I’m slutty. I have a partner who can bear a certain amount of that and no more. I can’t have a serious boyfriend. That’s just a limit for my life. It’s not to say that I can’t have friends I play with.

But Noah can’t bear how much attention I’m paying to the Quiet One. It hurts him and I have to stop. I can’t treat this like a retaliation for my list of done-me-wrongs.

If I’m doing something because I have to that is different from doing things to get even.

Given how eloquently Noah has expressed the pain this is causing him…….

It hurts him as much as it hurts me when he is dating. Sometimes I get the impression that the black hole inside of him isn’t a lot smaller than the one inside of me.

I need to not destroy Noah.

I think I need to have some variety of sex in my life but I don’t need to destroy Noah in the process. Not when he has such liberal boundaries around group play.

Having group sex doesn’t cause either of us to feel like we are dying. Either one of us going off to date solo makes the other feel like we aren’t needed any more and we should make ourselves small until we don’t exist any more.

For me that involves a lot of cutting. I don’t think his coping will be so flamboyant but it won’t be better.

I want to stay married to my best friend. I don’t want to give up pieces of him because I feel like they belong to other people now. I will though if he starts another relationship and goes off and does things with them that I like. That won’t be for me any more no matter how much I like it.

There is no fair here. Nothing like fair exists. But how much unfair can I shove on him in the name of balancing my own unfair?

fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

 

Last night was a good example of both why I want to step out and why it is a problem. I’m not going to fill you in on all the details. I work very hard to make sure this blog is not a list of done-me-wrongs.

Suffice to say that our sex life continues to be complicated.

I’m going to freak out over Noah dating. This is more predictable than weather. I don’t think I’m a good person. I think he deserves someone better. Him going out and dating is going to be setting us up so that I feel my replacement is on deck and I don’t need to be here.

I’m scared.

I have spent my whole life looking for the flimsiest of justifications for why I don’t need to stick around. I have managed to not die, but I flirt with it every year.

I am going to struggle with feeling like I have any possible value at all when he goes and dates. Does that mean I think he should feel like his value is eliminated by my fucking other people? No. Of course not.

I’m a hypocrite and I’m selfish and I’m terrible. I know.

I don’t fuck other people because they are better than Noah. They aren’t. No one is better than Noah. I do it because I am absolutely driven by sex with new people. It provides energy and turn on and responsiveness that I just can’t get with a long term partner. But I can bring it back to my long term partner, if he lets me.

It isn’t Noah’s responsibility to live his life in a way that is trying to keep me from killing myself. That’s not something he can pursue as a goal. That has to come from me.

But I don’t now what would work to make me stop wanting to die. I don’t feel like this because of Noah. I feel like this because I feel like this. I don’t want to hold Noah hostage.

But I am genuinely terrified that I will feel like he found a better-than-me replacement and I should go. Someone who isn’t such a problem. Someone who isn’t so selfish and bad.

I know I don’t deserve Noah. There is too much good there for me to ever deserve him. I know he deserves better than me and I’m just waiting till he spots it so I’m not necessary.

Which isn’t fair. Which is holding him hostage. I’m not. I’m going to let him do whatever he wants to do. That’s what I do. I don’t really tell Noah no that much. That is a piece of our problem. I just… don’t think I’m worth defending. Until I explode and I say I can’t follow rules anymore because we’ve had rules for years that are hurting me and I can’t keep doing this.

Then I’m the problem. I’m the problem. I’m the problem. Because I’m handling the problem so fucking badly.

I have been following rules. I have not done anything inappropriate near my children. I stay gone for very limited periods of time and I return when I say. I spanked before I had permission and I pushed the limits on using gloves for fingering. I asked about a possible exception to barriers and otherwise I have strictly followed the rules since then. As soon as Noah says he wants things to be special… I put it on lock down.

Do you know how hard it is for me to not ask permission to orgasm? I’ve done it during the majority of sex I’ve had since I was 20 years old. But Noah says no. So I’m figuring it out.

But I have no respect for my marriage or boundaries, right?

If I look in retrospect at my hunting pattern over the last five months…. ok now I see a lot more that seems obvious. I see how I’m looking for support and I don’t know where to get it from. I see that I want to figure out what I want because trying to use my words with Noah hasn’t gotten me there.

I like being chased. The vast majority of my hunting is done with me chasing. Which is not my preference. So most of the folks I’ve seen over the last few months have been folks where I had to do the asking and initiating and I push for what I want. In many ways I got the opposite of what I wanted. Because I’m good at that. Getting what I want and the opposite at the same time by the same route.

I have shaken the tree of my life as hard as I can. I turned up with three people who are asking for time.

I think I need to notice things like that. Other people won’t turn down time that I offer… which isn’t the same thing.

There’s a huge difference in the amount of wanting.

I really don’t like feeling like I’m pushing myself on folks who are lukewarm. It is getting closer to being a phobia.

Two of the three are pretty darn happy with group play. That’ll be most and maybe close to all of how we play going forward. Only the darn mostly-vanilla-switch won’t have group sex. But he’s satisfied with rare sex and hanging-out-with-Noah-in-the-vicinity.

Noah feels I want to take away half or more of my focus from our marriage. I don’t believe that is true long term. I believe that it has felt true for a period of time. I don’t think it is really that I’m obsessed with strange dick but that I’m trying to figure a lot of stuff out about myself as fast as possible and I’ve never been able to do that without bouncing off of new people. I’ve never been able to learn a lot about myself quickly without intensity and do you know how hard it is to talk people into intense connection without sex?! I scare the shit out of people.

But in post coital glow I have them trapped. Answer my demanding and invasive questions. Muahahaha.

Ahem.

I know I need to find a way to not feel like Noah dating is a threat to my existential right to exist. I know.

I’m not blowing things up for shits and giggles. I’m blowing things up because I can’t continue. I know that you are going to need more support going forward and I have to support you getting that.

I know that the only way you bond with people is through sex. We match. Sigh.

Ok, I don’t only bond with people through sex. I actually have a huge network of vanilla/platonic relationships. I am deeply bonded with a lot of people without having to fuck them.

You aren’t.

I have managed to piece together a support network for years. I need more support than I get from it… but I do have a support network. It is incredible and vast.

You don’t have that. I tried other paths. I did. I fucking did.

I don’t think I will long term have a strong need to have tons of outside sex. I think that sometimes I will need to learn a lesson. I won’t know what lesson until I’m done.

Part of what I learned was where to lean harder on my support network because I saw who stepped up and said, “Yes. Me.”

And my support network grew. I don’t think I’m losing anyone.

This experiment was rocky. My experiments often are. Personal growth hurts.

Breakfast is ready. I should go in.

We are at a point where Noah needs to talk about how he is feeling. He is afraid to talk to anyone we know because he will be describing me in unflattering ways and he feels he can’t do that within my support network.

I disagree.

I think Noah needs to go find some people who are his friends, my friends, or our friends and talk some shit. He needs some validation that I did shitty stuff. He’s feeling terrified of even admitting to himself how hurt he is.

He needs support and it can’t come from me because I’m the problem.

Noah totally does that man thing where 100% of his social support is supposed to come from his wife. This is not sustainable.

Noah is afraid to tell people that he thinks I’m a liar. I think that if I’m a liar we have bigger problems than people knowing that I do it.

Specifically he thinks I’ve lied a lot about the nonmonogamy stuff. I’ve said I want to not do x then done x almost immediately.

Yeah, that’s accurate.

I’m having a fucktastically hard time figuring out what I want. And that is leading to a lot of yes/no/maybe that comes out like lies. I say I won’t do something then I do it. That’s a lie. That’s not like a lie that’s a lie.

I said I wouldn’t be having sex with my submissive then I did. I said I would look for people who wanted group play… I’m not having that great of success. I said I would barely see people and instead I’d rather like to see people a lot.

Yes. These are lies.

Noah… it’s ok to be honest about the ways that I’m hurting you. It’s not only ok, it should be treated as mandatory. Or our relationship is broken.

If you are so hurt you can use the word you used earlier today… you need to talk about your feelings baby. You are important. You are a main character. Your pain does matter.

I love you. I’m not done. I’m not leaving. I want you. I do want forever.

And yes. I know that means I’m going to have to share you too.

It is a dawning realization.

Today we are going to the Exploratorium before a potluck discussion tonight. I didn’t sleep enough. Too busy keeping Noah awake with sex.

I think I have managed to convince myself that attention and oxytocin are the best ways to get through this pregnancy. I’m already at a reduced pot rate because of my Abilify period. I hope to keep the reduced tolerance and maybe even slash it some more. I have to. So the ounce I have needs to last until the cruise. I will find a way to stretch this. It’s going to mean a lot of by-choice-not-smoking days. Yuck.

Uhm, luckily I have a number of dates in the middle of the day coming up so I won’t medicate till almost bedtime?

When I was pregnant last time I used pot as an emergency “I’m about to fucking explode” helper and I didn’t love it but I didn’t feel that guilty. In the realm of drugs that doctors want me on for mental health problems… truly pot isn’t so bad. But I wasn’t using how I use now. That didn’t get going till after breastfeeding. If I was using 1/8 every few weeks I wouldn’t care at all about my usage while pregnant and breastfeeding. At this point I’ve had periods where I use 1/8 in two days and that’s not ok with me.

So I have to change it. Ok. That’s a changeable problem.

Also to work on: security/stability. I need to work on how to feel like Noah loves me as much as he does so I can handle him dating. I need to figure out how to get Noah dating to not feel like an existential threat.

That’s a lot of what I need to worry about with regards to this upcoming journey we want to do together. How can I feel safe? This is what I need to do. I need to work on this feeling of unsafe.

Ok. Everyone is ready to go.

I’m looking forward to today. It should be really awesome.

Today I feel very zen. Today I feel so happy and lucky. My life is intensely good. I may have complications and difficulty… but holy crud I’m feeling good and excited.

I feel happier than I have in a while. I’ve been off Abilify for two days. This is the third day. I’ve been off the Klonopin for a couple days longer. My mood is so much better. Hrm.

What does it mean to negotiate in bad faith? Does it mean someone knows they are saying something they can’t live up to? Does it mean negotiating and then changing your mind? Does it possibly include not knowing what you want?

Noah doesn’t want to think I’ve been doing bad things. He wants to believe I am doing something that is necessary on a primal level or I wouldn’t do it.

Today in therapy we talked a lot about how I’ve been fucking up. That wasn’t the way Noah wanted to phrase it, but that’s a lot of what it was. We are waiting to see just how far I’ll strain the enmeshment.

And then he will go date so he doesn’t feel so small and ignored. Ok.

How do we support one another through the changes that are coming? Because changes are coming. We aren’t going to do things how we have done them. We are going to be different.

And what is that going to mean?

Noah’s right that he can’t just be the boring one. He needs to be fascinating too. And people who are hard to catch are fascinating. Shit.

So many appointments coming up. Individual therapy and couples therapy and acupuncture and general practitioner and a groino. All in the next two weeks.

I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I swear.

I don’t see a path forward that will not involve dating for both of us.

I only see the need for more support and love. We are not enough. Both of us are inadequate. We’ve been trying for adequacy for ten fucking years and here we are. Both happy but not as happy as we could be. Both of us are content knowing the other is giving all they have to give. And we want more.

Noah is being super generous and he’s going to wait a few months and let me figure out more of a pattern before he starts seriously pursuing someone. Because I want to be chased… and Noah is going to have to chase. Which takes a lot of energy. Which means I’ll lose a lot of his energy.

Shit.

Noah and I are going to need to figure out an additional all night babysitter. Preferably out of our house in the next month or so. We’ll need one more night. Anyone?

There’s a thing we need to do together and I don’t know when it can get scheduled.

I’ve been looking at the stats breakdown instead of just the page views on wordpress.com. Because of course. I get between 34-ish to 49-ish people per day. Rarely fewer even more rarely more.

And I know most of you. I also know that there are people on the internet who vow that they’ve followed me for years because they don’t know me and they hate me.

So you people who hate me, I ain’t talking to you. I’m talking to the small, fervent band of friends I have. People who wade through hundreds, sometimes thousands of pages of writing every year to know me. Holy tomato. I think there are at least three dozen people who are that loyal. There are maybe four dozen who keep up consistently if not daily.

Thank you for using enough room in your brain on me to know that I am not consistent. I appreciate it when you point it out to me. I appreciate it when you point out, “You’ve really changed how you talk about ______.” I appreciate the reminders. “You say ______.” I do. But I like hearing it in your voice. Your voice is so nice.

That’s part of why my children are so fucking bossy. I need help making an inside voice.

I am both loved and lucky.

I have twelve dates scheduled. If I manage sex twice on at least half those dates (likely) That’s at least eighteen times for sex during Mardi Gras. I have other date hours available that might get filled. Let’s say at least twenty times from other folks. So then we get into the fact that Noah and I have been having sex 25-30-ish times a month.

I might hit fifty times during Mardi Gras. I think I’ll keep track.

Time to stop thinking about fun. Breakfast is ready. There’s a full house of kids. Their ages are: 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, & 4. I’m having so much fun.

We managed to move up our joint therapy session. We go to the first one this Thursday. I’m happy about this. We need some help with what we are doing.

I need to do some art around intentions. And that breaks my head. Ewwww. I’m that fucking woo woo.

Yes, motherfucker I am. Nobody is giving it to me as an assignment so it’s ok. I’m doing it for me. To organize my thoughts.

Who do I want to be at the end of this journey. What do I want my relationship to be like? What do I want my life to be like?

We shouldn’t finish this process till the remodel is done. Oh shit. I’ll call in the morning.

I’m pre-planning Mardi Gras. Like I do. If you aren’t on my schedule and you wish you were… well… the window will soon close. For a few years more than likely. (Which isn’t forever.) I’m just not going to be able to find time for new people. So uhm, yes. I’m not going to hunt for more people to fill time with. But I’m not done booking Mardi Gras.

Here’s my passive aggressive state of affairs.

I like being chased.

If you can’t be bothered to chase even a little then you don’t want me bad enough.

I gotta be realistic about my energy.

And I’m there for sex. To be clear. I have one month to uhh, err, burn it out of my system for a while.

After that I’m going to go do that breeder thing. Which means you are going to need to want to hang out with me for my sparkling wit and sobbing countenance (I don’t feel good for most of pregnancy) if you want to spend time with me.

Cheers, motherfuckers.

I sorta feel like the remodel from hell exists in its form to give me time to think about the different email lists/calendars I want to have for how to invite people over: vanilla friends for hangout time, dates, sex parties, vanilla friends for parties.

This weekend I was told I held court at the party I was at. Oh you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Just wait.

Soon my house will be ready. Like. The kind of ready I’ve been working on for years.

I want you to see my happy place.

I am lucky; I am lucky; I am lucky.