This weekend was eventful. Romeo and I had a super fun date night with our platonic friends, Oliver and Shelby. (If you\u2019re new or you forgot, Oliver is the guy who I had a huge crush on but he and Shelby are platonic so I had to squash that). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterwards, as we were getting ready for bed, Nadine was texting Romeo and talking about having a bad day. Romeo, being the loving and caring soul he is, invited her over for cuddles. He wasn\u2019t trying to make it a sexual thing, but I personally thought it was likely to go there. And, I was right! \ud83d\ude04<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nadine wanted to stay the night and Romeo and I thought it would be fun. We hadn\u2019t yet had a sleepover with any of our poly partners, other than years ago with Jesse. I had personally enjoyed that experience, but I know that Romeo had mixed feelings about it after the fact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Nadine arrived and we all got in bed to cuddle. We felt a lot of anxiety from her, and particularly fears about getting hurt in our poly relationship. We gave her a lot of reassurance and affection, and I think that it helped. Still, she was carrying a lot of heavy energy, and the night was pretty rough for all of us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sleeping in a new place can be unsettling, which I completely understand. For Nadine, it was definitely difficult for her to settle in for the night and go to sleep. Eventually, she decided to move to our floor mattress, which I had set up knowing that it was possible one or more of us would need to rearrange ourselves to get good sleep, especially considering that we have a queen size mattress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she moved to the floor mattress, she asked Romeo to come with her. He checked with me that it was okay, and they also asked if I wanted to join them, but that mattress is even smaller, and I was really tired and just wanted to sleep at that point. At the time, I really did feel like it was okay with me. I am an empath and a people-pleaser and a nurturer, so seeing Nadine in emotional turmoil only made me want to help her in any way I could. Loaning her my Romeo for a little while felt like the right thing to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suppose in my mind, I thought that he would come back to our bed at some point in the night. But it wasn\u2019t something I expressed that I wanted, and Nadine really seemed to need the comfort he was providing all night. I told myself that was fine, but I noticed a lot of anxiety building within myself. Part of that, I know, was because of my empathic nature; I absorb other people\u2019s feelings whether I want to or not. But I also now know that another part of it was my own anxiety, caused by insecurities I didn\u2019t know I had. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those anxieties were made worse by the things I heard Romeo and Nadine murmuring about as they were waiting to fall asleep. I heard her say that she was afraid to fall, and his response was \u201cI\u2019ll catch you.\u201d That felt like a knife to the heart because one of the first songs that he ever shared with me has the lyric \u201cyou\u2019re gonna fall, but I\u2019ll catch you.\u201d It was in the very beginning when he had dared me to fall in love with him, and hearing him say those words to someone else was really jarring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also noticed him opening up to her about some of his past traumas and being emotionally vulnerable with her. This is what we want, to be clear. This is what I<\/em> want. But I didn\u2019t realize how unprepared I was to watch Romeo develop emotional intimacy with someone else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I comforted myself that night by cuddling with my weighted stuffed manatee, and curling up under my weighted blanket. I was finally able to fall asleep with the help of a THC tablet. I could actually feel the moment it kicked in and my body finally relaxed, which showed me just how tense I had been without realizing it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the morning, I was able to process a lot of my feelings from the night before as I did some chores around the house. Nadine slept in late to get some much needed sleep, which also gave me time to talk to Romeo about my feelings. I felt it was important to share them with him, not because I felt he did anything wrong or needed to adjust his behavior. I reassured him of those things, as well. But I wanted to share my feelings with him because I felt it was important for keeping our<\/em> emotional intimacy strong. I also needed reassurance from him, and the side benefit was that I suspected he would be able to heal in some small way knowing that the feelings he has struggled with for so long are not one-sided. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In my processing, I discovered that I was able to identify the moments that were triggering, the emotions that they caused, and most importantly the thoughts underneath those emotions. Being able to identify those thoughts was key because it then allowed me to correct them, as well as receive reassurance from Romeo in exactly the ways I needed it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cI\u2019ll catch you\u201d moment triggered sadness, because of the thought that I was no longer special. I corrected that thought by reminding myself that I am the most special person to Romeo and always will be. I\u2019m his partner for life, and nobody else can or ever will be that as long as I\u2019m alive. His loving, caring, and giving nature is one of the things that I love most about him, and I never want him to stop being that way\u2014not just to me, but to anybody in his life that he wants to pour into. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Him sleeping in the bed with her all night caused me to feel neglected, and the thought I had underneath that was that my needs don\u2019t matter to him and I\u2019m not a priority. I corrected that thought by reminding myself that my needs are the most important to him, and he will meet them to the very best of his ability\u2014if only I communicate them. (Frankly, even if don\u2019t, he still tries and often succeeds at decoding me). I know that I am his top priority over anyone else, period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Him being emotionally vulnerable with her made me sad because of the thought that he wouldn\u2019t need me anymore if he didn\u2019t rely on me to be the one person he trusted enough to open up to. I again thought that I was no longer special. I corrected this thought by remembering that it is good for Romeo to have more than one person to be vulnerable with emotionally. I know that he will never connect with someone as deeply as he is connected to me. I can feel secure knowing my place in his life and heart. I am irreplaceable to him, just as he is to me. But his growing connections to other people are a beautiful thing that I want to encourage and celebrate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Romeo reassured me in all of the ways I needed, as well. It was very healing for me to be able to share my pain with him, with the intention of processing and easing those feelings rather than \u201cfixing\u201d them or the situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And, as I suspected, Romeo has benefited emotionally from the knowledge that I, too, have insecurities. This is natural, after all. When you love someone as much as we love each other, it would be odd not to be at least a little afraid of losing them, no matter how irrational that fear is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving forward, I am working on communicating my needs, desires, and boundaries in a more confident and assertive manner. I am working on replacing my people-pleasing tendencies with an approach that honors my own self as an equally important person to consider in my actions and decisions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Polyamory is not for the faint of heart. It is helping me to grow in ways that are at times uncomfortable or painful, but ultimately forming me into my best self day by day. To me, it is all worth it in the end because not only am I a stronger and healthier person, but I\u2019m a person who is surrounding myself with more and more love. That, to me, is what life is all about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P.S. I also have an update on my \u201cboyfriend search\u201d as I\u2019m thinking of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We met Jonas and Kameron. Jonas was very sweet and there was absolutely nothing wrong with him\u2014but we had very little rapport or chemistry, probably because we have very little in common. We decided to let that one go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kameron was just as wonderful as I had hoped he would be. He\u2019s funny, easy to talk to, amazing with our kiddos, and sexy as hell. My only complaint, if you can call it that, is that he\u2019s perhaps\u2026 too<\/em> respectful? What I mean by that is that I appreciate respect for me and Romeo and our relationship, very much; but, I also want to feel wanted! I want a guy to initiate physical affection because I have a terrible internal monologue telling me that they don\u2019t really want me and touching them would be unwanted physical contact and make them feel uncomfortable. I need to know<\/em> a guy wants me to touch them, and vice versa, by their actions. I suspect that as time goes on and we meet again, Kameron will be less hesitant to initiate things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Side note, it\u2019s never not going to be weird writing things about someone who I know is going to read it, probably as soon as I post it.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n My new candidates have continued to be consistent, and so I will now bestow them with pseudonyms accordingly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The first guy is going to be Dylan. He is very sweet, very attentive, super funny, smart, and cute. I have high hopes for our relationship to be something really good! My only concerns are our physical distance, and some complex poly dynamics at play on his end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The second guy is going to be Arlo. He is\u2026 well, let\u2019s just say his existence<\/em> is basically a panty-dropper. He\u2019s Hot with a capital H. He also says he wants all of the same things I do, and that he\u2019s very available to spend time with me. On paper, he is perfect. My only concern with him is that our connection might become too sexual and not emotional enough, or not have as good of a friendship underlying it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have plans to meet both of them within the next week, and I\u2019m hoping that those meetings give me clarity on how to proceed from here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This weekend was eventful. Romeo and I had a super fun date night with our platonic friends, Oliver and Shelby. (If you\u2019re new or you forgot, Oliver is the guy who I had a huge crush on but he and Shelby are platonic so I had to squash that). Afterwards, as we were getting ready… Continue reading This is a story about new and unexpected feelings.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}