bookofmirrors | Transitions

So, while I'm at my parents' for Thanksgiving, I had several profound moments. Most will be documented in my other journal, but this one belongs here. The reason I'm in the mood to write it tonight is that, while

blckwngdorcl and I were driving home from my client's tonight, we were having a great conversation about some books he's reading (Note: Hey,

blckwngdorcl, you might wanna follow that link - it refers to two more books you don't have...), and suddenly I just got this overwhelming feeling of overall rightness in my world. That things really WERE as they should be, and that I'd made good choices in my life, and that things were just coming along nicely in general. With all my doubts about things lately, I treasure those (these) moments.

Anyway, the subject of this post falls into that category.

So, I'm lying in bed, about to go to sleep (when many of these little revelations came to me) when something became very clear to me.

(OK, so here's the point where I don't know where to go with this post... that is, whether to jump straight to the conclusion, or to give some background... the former would be a bit jarring to readers... the latter would make the conclusion anti-climactic. Hmmmmm... Think I'll go for the shock value factor this time. *eg*)

blckwngdorcl,

lunenoire, and I are no longer in a triad. We've become more of a V, with

blckwngdorcl at the apex. (Apex isn't exactly the correct term, is it? Hmmm... Well, you get the idea.)

But, even as I say that, it doesn't feel quite true. I looked up, for reference, the post I originally made concerning the formation of our triad, and everything I wrote there seems truer now than it did when I wrote it. (Which just has me shaking my head at the irony...) Anyway, the reason I was looking it up to reference was that I knew I had made a post about my relationship with

lunenoire, noting at the time that I didn't know if it was meant to be romantic or not, but that I was enjoying it while it lasts. It wasn't the original post, it would seem, 'cause I didn't mention that there, and I don't feel like looking further to find the post. I was going to reference it partially for validation, and partially to ease the shock value to readers in a see-I-alluded-to-this-a-long-time-ago-so-you-shouldn't-be-so-shocked kinda way. But, anyway, you'll have to take my word for it. (Unless, of course, you're TOTALLY bored, and you feel like searching for such an entry in my archives, and linking to it in the comments section. Not that I recommend that. If you're that bored, you should be jerking off or doing something similarly more stimulating. Just sayin'.)

Anyway, back to the subject at hand, and to the part where I back up and explain how this all came about.

The relationship between

lunenoire and I has always been challenging, for both of us. Not to oversimplify it, but he trips a lot of my Leo and

logomancer triggers, and I trip a lot of his Mom triggers. While we were both cognizant of this, and tried to be aware of this in the moment(s), that didn't always work, and often our emotions got in the way. (Disclaimer: I'm supposed to be opening to my emotions, a la Core, but the stuff this tripped just terrified me, and I closed up. Not to say that we didn't have some profound moments after I (and he) got over my (our) fear(s). We did. It's just we got to those the hard way.) Anyway, speaking for myself, I found it hard to deal with his ability to be so in touch with his anger (even though I really wanted that on an intellectual level, since I have so much trouble dealing with anger), and there were things about our relationship that were just so HARD. I think that was on both sides. Comparing that with my magical relationship with

blckwngdorcl, it's been hard. The facts, of course, are that

blckwngdorcl and I went through a lot of intense therapy and personal work to have this magical relationship, but we've been so fabulous for so long, even though I remember that there WAS a time when it was very hard, and a lot of work, it just never seemed like that much work, y'know? And my hindsight is a bit rose-colored. So, anyway, the contrast between the two relationships was startling for me.

But that seemed like such a copout, y'know? Exactly like what I bitched about in my entry about the Phantom of the Opera. (Which I tried to find to link to, but that became too much of a pain in the ass...) Anyway the gist of it was me being pissed that Christine couldn't deal with the Phantom's lower self, and ran off with the superficial twit for a superficial twitty relationship, rather than the deeper (but more volatile) relationship she could have had with the Phantom. I didn't wanna be that person.

Problem was, I didn't want to be that person so badly, I overlooked a lot of things.

lunenoire has called me Machiavellian more than once, and it's true. Granted, maybe not completely in the completely heartless sense. It's moreso that I can see lots of sides of the coin. I can see the emotional mushy stuff, but that doesn't blind me to the practicality of it, even when the practicality isn't my main concern. So, there was a part of me that, even though I could tell there were issues with our relationship, was convinced it should continue, that we should keep knocking our heads against that brick wall, 'cause dammit, I hadn't yet learned whatever lesson the Universe was trying to teach me. And I sure as fuck didn't want the new and improved version of the same lesson that would come along if I rejected this one. They get worse as you go along, doncha know. Plus, y'know, all those triggers were being tripped. There had to be a reason for that, right? I was supposed to learn something, and by god, I wasn't gonna give up until I did!

Problem was, in the meantime, I wasn't remembering to enjoy the relationship. I started resenting the difficulty of whatever lesson I was supposed to be learning, and resenting that I apparently wasn't learning it, since things were still so difficult. This devolved into me resenting the relationship itself, then started to seep into the territory of resenting

lunenoire himself.

(Note: I say all the above with 20/20 hindsight. At the time, I was just plain resentful, and fearing my own anger, and his, as well as stubbornly trying to put myself in the path of the Universe's clue-by-four, I tried to bury those feelings in favor of having a great triad relationship.)

Anyway, without getting into details which really don't matter, (and this is turning out to be a long post already), a situation ocurred where

lunenoire and I got into ...it's hard to call it a fight. We were angry at each other, but there are certain things I consider definitive of fights, and those elements weren't present. The result of this was that, the next day, he vented to

blckwngdorcl. While

blckwngdorcl didn't feel comfortable telling me what he'd vented about (except for one key element), he did say

lunenoire had vented, and felt better afterwards. However, while he was telling me all this, and we were discussing it, and I was verbalizing a lot of what I said above (about having doubts about the nature of the relationship, but not wanting to lose the lesson of it), I suddenly got this overwhelming feeling that everything was OK, no matter what happened. That I already HAD the lesson, I just hadn't pieced it together yet. Nothing more needed to be done, everything was just perfect as it was.

I went home that night feeling very good, and no longer being resentful of the relationship, or of

lunenoire, and in fact, felt closer to him than I had in quite some time. Still, though, I was unclear on what was going to happen. The one thing that

blckwngdorcl did tell me about the venting was something that I thought warranted further discussion, but

blckwngdorcl said that he didn't think it would be a good thing (read as, a kind/thoughtful/loving thing) to bring it up before our respective Thanksgiving trips. My air sign I-want-to-communicate-NOW twitched horribly at this, but I recognized the wisdom of it. (Hindsight makes me glad I did, of course.)

So, skip back to the part where I'm lying in bed at my parent's house, having revelations and shit. :)

It suddenly (out of the blue, as I recall, 'cause I don't think I was thinking about this at the time) ocurred to me that something I said early on in our forays into polyamory was totally true, and hadn't changed. I was SOOOOO into

blckwngdorcl and our relationship. I love(d) him with an almost all-encompassing passion which outshone anything else in my life. And that hadn't changed.

But I'd said we were in a triad, so, dammit, it was gonna be a triad, come hell or high water. Even though

blckwngdorcl had said for months that it felt more like a V to him. I didn't want to fail, either at learning life's lessons, sticking out tough relationships, or just at polyamory in general. But the overwhelming feeling I got that night was that, yeah, I did love

blckwngdorcl just about to the exclusion of all others.

And that's OK.

Hell, I even toyed with the idea of being monogamous as I laid there. For myself, of course. I had no intention or desire to thwart

blckwngdorcl's relationship with

lunenoire in any way. I haven't really come to a conclusion about this. I think I will always be emotionally monogamous to

blckwngdorcl. There's part of me that worries about that. The huge LJ drama about that Warm Fuzzies post and polyamory that Michelle got into, during which I came to the conclusion that polyamory was a good challenge in my life, 'cause I had trouble connecting to people, and polyamory would work on that. Keep in mind that, while I use the term polyamory, I rarely mean it. I tend to practice something more along the lines of polyfuckery. Don't get me wrong. If I sleep with you, I love you, and I loved you before I got in bed with you, or it wouldn't have happened. But if I try to compare that love to what I have with

blckwngdorcl, it falls very short. Maybe that type of love is enough to call it polyamory, but I know it's not the same. I haven't decided if that's OK yet, or if the labels even matter.

But I digress. The point is, I was there in bed, coming to the conclusion that I no longer wanted to be in a romantic relationship with

lunenoire, and that was pretty profound.

When I got back to Atlanta, the three of us went out to eat. I mentioned to

lunenoire that I wanted to go out for coffee with him later. This always means that I want to talk, by the way. I love talking over coffee, meals, etc.. He asked if this was a talking coffee date, and I said it was, and he basically said he couldn't stand the suspense, and could I talk about it right then. I hadn't, prior to this, mentioned any of my revelation to

blckwngdorcl, and had been planning on telling him after I spoke with

lunenoire, but, as it was, they both heard it at the same time.

Funny thing is,

lunenoire wasn't upset about it. He said he was actually relieved, 'cause he'd been picking up on that energy for quite some time, and what I said validated it, so he knew he wasn't going crazy.

blckwngdorcl was a bit stunned by it, but I think he was OK pretty quickly.

lunenoire had the expected backlash a few days later. I didn't, really.

blckwngdorcl said that he thought that it was because, for me, the relationship hadn't really changed. It had just become openly what it always was for me. I think he's right about that.

So, let's get back to something I said earlier, about how I feel more like my original post claiming us as a triad is more true than ever. Not the triad part. But the emotions I mentioned, how the Universe seems pleased with the union, how the energies flow. It's like, once I spoke my truth about what I felt the nature of the relationship was in my eyes, then the relationship became good again. It's really hard to describe. It's like, by freeing myself of the (perceived) obligation to love

lunenoire, then I felt free to love him again. (Disclaimer: Said "obligation" was a product of my own psyche, and due to no external forces on his part, or anyone else's.) Aside from the sex, I feel about him now more like I did at the beginning of the relationship, but in a more grounded way. Part of me is horribly amused by this turn of events, in a wry, ironic sort of way. It's like I had to divorce my "husband" to fall in love with him.

*shrug* Bottom line is, I no longer call

lunenoire my husband, even though he is still my husband's husband (or parter, if you will). I no longer consider myself in love with him, although I love him more now than I did when I (thought I?) was in love with him. We're continuing to live together, but we're all (in my opinion) doing it BETTER. We may keep this arrangement, and we may not. But whether or not we do is going to be based on what we each feel is right for us as INDIVIDUALS, not what we feel we need to do because we label ourselves as a part of a triad, a V, a couple, or any other external definitive factor.

Maybe that *is* the definition of a true triad, a true couple, a true relationship. But I'm not going to let myself be bogged down by those labels. Partially, it just doesn't serve me. Mostly, the irony and the paradox make my fucking head spin. :)

Ain't life grand?