joreth | Confronting the Monsters

I've always been a huge proponent of confronting fears, way before I ever heard Franklin's Monster analogy. Y'know the one that goes:

"I like to march into the dark closet of my mind and find the biggest, baddest monster in there, grab it by the tail and haul it into the light, then go toe to toe with it in a knock-down, drag out fight to the death."

I've found that often times, the monster in the closet is really more like a creature creating a shadow puppet in the dark recesses of my mind, something that *seems* big and scary, but once you expose it to the light, it's really not as big and scary as it seemed in the shadows.

I like to understand why things are the way they are. I find that once I understand where it comes from, why it is what it is, once I have information (bring the monster into the light), I can more easily attack and defeat a problem.

But what happens when the shadow puppets on the wall of my mind (my fears) are created, not by a monster, an internal conflict or emotion, but by an external source, a real person?

And what happens when someone you care about stands in front of the closet door, blocking you from entering, saying "No, I don't think you should go in there. You're much scarier than she is, and I don't want to scare her away. Just go away and ignore her. Eventually she'll come out on her own when she's more comfortable with you"?

These questions came out of a situation I went through not too long ago, so when I refer to it and the people involved, I'll use psuedonyms, but those who know me IRL will probably figure out who I'm talking about. So I apologize in advance if I do not adequately protect someone's privacy.

I started dating Brian. Early on, we discussed poly theory and philosophies. I included my "fear of abandonment rooted in historical precedence". I believed we were both on the same page about this. I'm not prone to jealousy, being rather secure in my self-esteem and my sense of self-worth, but I do have a history of men claiming to be OK with poly, then "falling in love" and wanting exclusivity and trying subsersive, passive-aggressive tactics to get me to break up with my other partners, or keeping themselves emotionally distant from me and then dumping me when they find another girl they want to shag and she's not in favor of sharing.

I have not ever been in a situation where I felt jealous that I can recall, but I have learned to be cautious when another girl enters the picture, until I can evaluate for myself if she poses any "threat" to my relationship, such as being monogamous and desiring to keep my sweetie all to herself (and my past-sweeties consistantly agreeing to be "kept" by the new girl). I stressed my desire to build a network where all the OSOs were friendly with each other.

So, shortly after we began dating, Brian met Julia. Julia indicated to Brian that she had self-esteem issues and difficulty with the idea of sharing him. When Brian told me about this, I reiterated my discomfort with this situation, only this time specifically with her. I actually said "I have a problem with that". He reassured me that he did too, that he was totally up front with her about insisting that he would have other girlfriends and she had to accept it, and he also told me that she was someone he had fun with but had no emotional connection to her and doubted it would get serious, especially in light of her "issues". I let the matter rest.

At this point, the monster was pretty small. I could have easily dragged it into the light. I should have confronted it and examined it to see if it really posed any threat. But Brian stood in front of the door and said "she's new to poly, let me talk with her for a while first and let her get comfortable with it".

Time passes and Brian meets and begins dating Sarah. Brian tells me that she does not consider herself poly, but has at least heard of it. Again, I tell him that I'm not comfortable with this. This time, Brian doesn't suggest I keep my distance. Instead, he proposes we meet. First he shows me her online profile and encourages me to write to her when I get excited about the things we have things in common. Sarah and I trade a couple of emails, but Real Life intrudes and we lose touch. Then, he sets up a dinner with her, him, myself, my then-other-sweetie, and a friend of Sarah's. It's a tad awkward at first because he is the only extrovert at the table, but pretty quickly we find our common interests and have a very lovely dinner together. Some time passes, and we have a chance to meet again. This time, we bond quite closely.

This monster I was allowed to confront right away. When I dragged it into the light, the fear turned out to be easily defeated by direct communication and information exchange with the subject herself, Sarah.

In the course of our bonding, Sarah and I discussed many things, including Julia (naturally). Turns out, Sarah had the same misgvings about her that I did. By this point, I was finally able to actually meet Julia, but she showed signs of resistance to those meetings and remained cool towards me. On the rare occasion I spoke with Brian about her, he admitted she was still having "issues", but they were "working on it". He promised that he required "progress" to continue dating her. He still requested I give her time and not pressure her. I should have pressured her.

Now, because I have not confronted my monster, it's growing bigger, feeding on the real signals that things are not improving and on the lack of any information to the contrary. The imagination can often conjure up something worse than actual events, so the monster gets bigger with less information. Julia actively avoids group situations where I or Sarah might be. When Brian tries to push the issue of her spending time with us, she makes comments like "You mean I actually have to be friends with these people?", yet she seems to have no problems meeting his platonic friends and even developing independent friendships with some of them.

When she does make an appearance at a social event, it is only at Brian's prodding and she avoids direct communication with me as much as possible, limiting conversation to pleasant greetings. I continue to indicate my displeasure with the situation. Brian continues to ask me to be patient. At this point, I begin to feel neglected. I see myself as coming to my partner with an emotional problem, and it appears as though my partner was ignoring my concerns, but expending energy on "working with" another girl's problems. I also see no signs of progress that her problems are getting better. The only "proof" I have that she's improving is Brian's protestations that "Julia is improving". But she still avoids social interactions with me and when Brian asks her to exchange email addresses with me and Sarah, well, he would only say the discussion was "unpleasant". This does not indicate to me that Julia is feeling better about being in a poly relationship, but it does seem to indicate that Brian might not have a clue as to what's going on, or is misleading me.

The monster is throwing full-blown, room-sized shadows all over my mind. I am still not encouraged to drag it out by the tail. Instead, Brian keeps poking his head in the closet, having conversations I can't hear, then coming back and saying "really, it's not that big!" Meanwhile, my scary shadow puppets are keeping me awake at night.

Now, I am not saying that Julia actually is a monster. Frankly, I don't know her well enough to claim she is anything. But since I can't see her for what she is, I build an image in my head based on second-hand information and ripples of her actions without direct observation. With this sketchy information, the image of this monster is of a seriously insecure, inexperienced little girl who really wants to be involved with Brian, and is only tolerating my presence in his life as long as she isn't required to actually be in my presence or experience any discomfort that challenges her admitted insecurities.

And my experience has taught me that people who just "tolerate" what their partners do, often have a hidden, sometimes subconscious, agenda. In the poly world, when a non-poly person dates a poly person and doesn't *really* want him to be poly, that means she tries to make herself into the person he wants her to be so she can prove to him that she's all he needs and once he realizes how special she is, he won't want anyone else. I should know, I've dated quite a few guys with that agenda and almost everyone I know has gone through at least one of those.

Again, I have to reiterate that I don't actually believe that Julia is this monster. But what I have are a few signs that say she *could* be and absolutely nothing to refute that she is except for Brian saying "She's not that monster. And besides, so what if she is? She's not causing you any physical harm so you shouldn't be upset. I don't like you limiting my options like this!" Let me tell you, that does not make my monster get any smaller, and in fact, it's getting so large that all my other monsters in the closet are getting crowded out! Sarah, by the way, seems to have arrived at exactly the same conclusions I had totally independent of me, as we discovered when we compared notes. So we joined forces and told Brian, in these exact words, "This is a problem and it needs to be resolved now", just to make sure he understood.

I'm going to diverge from the story with Brian and Julia for a moment by contrasting it with another situation. I am also with Franklin who has just recently added another partner to his life. He has also moved out of the state, turning our psuedo-long-distance relationship into a real long distance relationship. About this time, we also discussed the possibility of deepening our relationship and we both agree that, although we have limited our emotional connection due to bad timing, we have the potential (and desire) for something *more*. A move at this time is potentially damaging to a very fragile increased intimate connection. Add on top of this, a new girlfriend who is local to him, and we have a recipe for another monster.

So I went to visit him recently and had the opportunity to meet his new sweetie. With my recent experience with Brian in mind, I kept half a mental-eye on my reactions to the encounter. When I arrived, both the new sweetie and his long-time love were there. At the time, I wasn't even aware that his new sweetie was, in fact, a sweetie. The next day, I asked him and he did tell me that they were dating. She came over again the night after that. We all had a pleasant evening together. All throughout the evening, I was having no negative feelings at all about her or the time shared with her. I also discovered that his assumptions that everyone would accept each other made me feel *more secure* in my relationship with him and in his relationships with other girls.

In other words, this monster never had a chance to exist in the first place.

I recently began dating someone new. He and I have slightly different versions of "poly". This is some cause for concern ... shadow puppets of a monster. Our relationship remained undefined for some time. We finally sat down together and discussed what a "relationship" meant to each of us. With the situation of Brian and Julia still quite firmly in my mind, I stressed the need for direct communication with the other girlfriends. He admitted he had another relationship with someone he considers a serious partner. He admitted she was new to poly. He also offered to call her up right then and there and ask her if she wanted to go dancing with me that night (it didn't happen for totally unrelated reasons).

Then we spent some time apart and digested the information we exchanged. Then we got back together and talked, clearing up the misunderstandings we had from the first conversation. I again stressed the concepts of personal responsibility and communication. He immediately offered to give me his other girlfriend's phone number. I gave him Franklin's number.

We have different levels of what kind of partners we find acceptable for ourselves. But we also have created an environment where we can talk with each other and our other partners to work out acceptable compromises. I have been communicating with his other girlfriend online, and even though she is new to poly, and I'm sure we will have situations arise in the future that will cause hurt feelings and renegotiation, I am already reassured about her ability to keep the shadow puppets to a minimum and I have no concerns or "monsters" lurking in the closet about her.

Let's revisit Brian and Julia. My monster was getting so big that the closet door was bulging out and pressure was building in my mind. I keep saying that I didn't actually believe that Julia was the monster I had made her out to be. I was aware from the beginning that my impression of her was based on lack of information, and what little information I had was given to me through Brian and not her directly. He finally understood that I was having a problem, after a year of mentioning it, and started pressuring Julia to show "progress".

She asked for, and was granted, a stay of execution where she didn't even have to think about the poly issue for another 6 weeks, which was then extended to 3 months by Brian not pushing the issue and Julia taking advantage of Brian's silence by not bringing it up herself! By this point, I had ceased to see Julia as a person at all. She became for me, the Monster. My fears were no longer contained inside my mind and they materialized in totally irrational behaviour, including a repulsion for being touched by Brian if I even thought she had touched him recently and he hadn't showered.

The problem in our relationship was really two-fold. First, were the issues that Julia had about me that resulted in my own distrust of her and her intentions and motivations. Second was a growing sense of distrust and disrespect for Brian, first because he seemed to ignore my discomfort while at the same time expending time and energy on comforting and reassuring Julia and working with her to overcome her insecurities, then because he increasingly refused to see that she was doing anything wrong or hurtful but accused me of being hurtful to her (even when I hadn't had any opportunity to see her or talk to her), and THEN because he insisted he be "allowed" to date anyone he wanted and to not take any responsibility for the unintended consequences of dating someone who did not get along with his existing partners.

Even if Julia had somehow managed to do something obvious enough to "prove" she wasn't poly and never would be, this would not solve the problem. Brian refused to stop dating her even if she did something like that (he would only see her on a "casual" basis, whatever that's supposed to mean, since he would still have sex with her and still spend time with her). If she managed to do something so heinous that he would have to stop dating her, he still wouldn't recognize that when his choice in partners adversely affects his existing relationships, that he would have to take responsibility for that and he himself should choose not to engage in something that hurts his partners; he would have to "limit" his own options.

He takes the stance that all his partners know he's "poly" and therefore should not object to him having any other partners, no matter who they are. We should automatically extend the trust we have for him onto his other partners, sight unseen. He would continue to date whomever caught his fancy with no sense of concern for the destruction or disruption she might cause his other girlfriends. His only limitations were how his new girl might affect *him*. I just can't respect that. Nor can I trust him to not hurt me indirectly by dating someone who hurts me. And I can't date someone I don't respect or don't trust.

So, back to the point of this journal entry. Confronting monsters. All these various situations, had the potential to develop fears or insecurities about situations. In every single one of them, the weapon that had the most impact on the monster, or fear, was Direct Communication. Either Direct Communication is the tool I used to defeat the monster, or lack of Direct Communication caused the monster to wreak havoc in my life. When Franklin's soulmate and I have difficulty understanding each other, she always comes to me directly and we work something out. Not without hurt feelings sometimes, but I'm not afraid of hurt feelings. Hurt feelings are part of the risk we take when we open ourselves up to intimate connections. But we work something out together.

When Brian began dating Sarah, I discussed with her directly my concerns and she cleared up the misconceptions Brian had conveyed to me. When Franklin threw me together with his new sweetie, there was no time for any unknown variable to manifest in my mind. When my new sweetie and I discovered we had different ideas about poly relationships but wanted to be together anyway, and he admitted having another girlfriend who was new to poly, with absolutely no hesitation, he gave me the weapons to confront this monster by offering up a direct line of communication with the source of my "shadow puppets", the monster, my concern or fear.

But when Brian started dating Julia, I was not able to confront my monster, who was actually a real person creating the "shadow puppets", the fears. Part of this was my fault. I should have pushed him aside and stormed into the closet. I should have put my foot down and said "I have to talk to her. This is going to drive me crazy". The reason I didn't is because I didn't understand just how big that monster was going to get. I was afraid that insisting I had the right to confront my fear of her so early on in our relationship would drive him away instead. I should have known back then that if he ran because I insisted I talk to his other girlfriends, that I shouldn't be with him in the first place. But I liked him and thought we had the potential to be something special.

I turned my back on the monster. The monsters like it when you do that. They feed on it. They grow bigger when you don't confront them. In fact, the more you ignore them, the more power they have, and they can manifest themselves in all kinds of painful and disruptive ways. They're sneaky too. They'll wear disguises so when they show up and kick you in the butt, you don't know which monster it is, and you go off chasing the shadow puppets instead of the monster making the shadows.

But armed with Direct Communication, you can shoot an arrow "directly" into the heart of the monster. You may not kill it right away. In fact, you may make it angry first. But once you bring it into the light, once you have the proper information, you will see it for what it really is, and you will be able to identify and use the proper weapons to defeat it.

*The "Brian" character in this story is not the Brian that I dated for a couple of years - for those of you who know him. This happened before then and it is just coincidence that I chose that pseudonym. While I was dating the real Brian, I changed the name in the story to "John". So some of the comments below refer to "John and Julia", and they are talking about "Brian and Julia". Since I am no longer dating any Brians, and haven't been for some time, I returned to the original name so that the comments would match the story, forgetting about the comments referring to "John". Now that I've remembered the "John" comments, it doesn't matter which name I use in the story, there will always be confusion, so I'm sticking with the original name.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Brava! Well-said.

Hi. :) I sent you an email at your livejournal address - let me know if that's not a good contact method.

And yeah - it failed, so if you have another one I can try.. :)

Just added you to my aim and yahoo friend's lists, and sent my email through yahoo in the friend's request additional info field. Let me know if that worked or not

The best way to make a monogamous person comfortable with poly is to toss them into the deep end and let them learn to swim. If you don't have them meet the other partners ASAP and develop friendships, then they will have their own monsters that will just keep growing. I've seen the ease them in idea done a few times now, and I have never, ever seen it work. I've seen the dive right in approach work rarely, but it either works or tells you that this person can't handle poly, or tells you that there's an incompatibility somewhere in the group. Definitely more valuable.

Also, in my own experience with a poly-me(poly)-poly-mono configuration with the poly to my right connected to the mono person being an ENTP... The communication got botched. I'm friends with said mono person now, and I think we were both getting different versions of reality through that person, and that made things much worse. If we'd been sharing info, the situation likely would have gone better. Oh, they'd still have broken up - they're not suited for each other, but they'd have done far fewer stupid things before that.

Please understand, I love that ENTP dearly. He's brilliant. He's really intelligent and talented in many areas. But understanding people and paying attention to details aren't those areas (unless those details are about inanimate objects). And he'll think he's communicating everything important, but not realize that he left out bits because he forgot them or didn't note their relevance.

Lots of communication is the solution to that problem. But I now really distrust second-hand communication even from people I dearly love. Being a wonderful person doesn't mean you can relay information accurately.

I would not be surprised if Brian made things worse for Julia based on how he spoke about you and Sarah. I also wouldn't be surprised if Julia would have been much happier herself if she had been talking to you from the beginning.

Based on what I know of Brian now, and how he communicates (or doesn't, as the case may be), I'm quite sure that Julia had her own monsters to deal with that grew larger with the lack of direct communication with me and Sarah. This, btw, is something I said early on in my complaints to Brian, as a warning that things were not getting better, and it was my own concern and compassion for her that sparked the desire to talk with her in the first place. I knew she had issues and I believed she would have an easier time of it if she could see I wasn't this scary "perfect person" that she had built up in her mind as someone worthy of being intimidated by.

I never liked second-hand information, and like you said, that has nothing to do with who is relaying the information. It has nothing to do with intentions or love, but people in general do not relay information word for word and intonation for intonation. That's why direct communication is such a powerful weapon when fighting the monsters.

I totally agree with the sink-or-swim method, and Brian and I have had quite a few conversations, both before and after the breakup, about Trial By Fire. It's actually quite entertaining, now that I'm no longer directly affected, but when we have theoretical discussions about it, he seems to agree with me about throwing people in the deep end. The last time we had that kind of conversation, I said "remember this conversation for future reference". He paused and asked why. I laughed and told him to guess. He thought about it, then said something along the lines of "are you hinting about something specific in my life?" I said yes. And left it at that. Because it's no longer my concern how he screws things up.

Brian knows that he leaves out bits and forgets to mention things or doesn't note their relevance. Everyone does this, some people (ENTPs, for example) do this more than others. That's why it was so important to have been able to talk to each other. I'm quite positive we could have reached some kind of arrangement before things went so disasterously wrong. But, I'm happier not having to go through all that with every consecutive girlfriend. The stress and strain of all last year has been removed, so that situation, at least, is better resolved the way it is. I'm just sad that I spent a year in that emotional hell before I listend to my own advice and stood up for my principles sooner.

"poly-me(poly)-poly-mono configuration"

I'd love to know more about this language.. would you turn this description into English for me please, or point to someplace I can learn about it? It seems like a very handy shorthand.

it's more of her own shorthand, not any sort of poly term. What she's saying is that she was in sort of a poly "line" relationship where there was someone who is poly who was dating her, and she was dating someone else who was poly, and he was dating someone who was monogamous. 4 people: 1 poly person <-> her (who is poly) <-> another poly person <-> a monogamous person. Does that help?

I have a whole page about terms at www.theinnbetween.net/polyterms.html

Joreth explained, I just used the A-B-C-D format to show who was involved with whom. It was a simple line setup. And then used the words poly and mono to mean whether the person was polyamorous or monogamous. me(poly) was just to mean that part of the picture was where I was, and I am poly.

Yanno, I STILL don't get the choice of Julia over you & Sarah. You 2 rock ;-)

Aww, thanks! Sarah and I feel that way too, but of course, we're sort of biased in that area ;)

Well, you know I very much support the ideas of helping the 2 of you bond by me putting you in mutual in bondage :-D
I mean, friends are supposed to help each other out that way, right? ;-)

Awww!

I appreciate the support.

well, from his point of view, he didn't choose Julia over us ... Sarah and I chose to leave him because of Julia (and other reasons). *I* see it as his choice, however, because of the law of unintended consequences, and this particular consequence was brought to his attention before the act of leaving happened, when we still could have decided not to leave. He chose to refrain from leaving a relationship that his other two partners disapproved of because that relationship did not require him to actively "dump" anyone else.

He chose a life that involved no obvious and active limits on other partners (although does include a passive resistance and tension to other partners), rather than a life with more inclusive-poly relationships that *would* require *self-imposed limits* on other relationships by refusing to adjust his relationship with Julia when Sarah and I said the consequences for such refusal would be a loss of us.

I know he does not see his actions (or lack thereof) as "choosing one relationship over another" ... he only sees as far as Sarah and I choosing to leave, not that our leaving was a consequence of his choosing to date Julia and allow things to progress the way they did and his belief that he should be allowed to continue to date people in a similar manner in the future. He does not claim any responsibility for us leaving ... it was all *our* choice and he steadfastedly refuses to admit he "chose" her over us in any way.

I am often against dating people who do not self-identify as poly on principle. A common catchphrase between myself and Sarah is "don't date the mono people", which collectively includes poly-newbies who don't immediately embrace the concept in a "so THAT'S what I've been looking for" kind of way. And

tacit and I both avow to not date "newbies" anymore ourselves and I am very reluctant to even date poly guys who are willing to date newbies themselves.

So when my partners tell me they want to date someone who is not poly, or new to poly, my red flag goes up as a sign that this person has a higher chance of causing problems.

So I'm biased against mono people and newbies.

However, I'm willing to evaluate each person individually, and Direct Communication gives me the tools to better evaluate the potential drama a "newbie" can bring to the relationship. This has been called into question with the situation of Brian & Julia.

I had the chance to meet my new sweetie's other sweetie ... the one who had never heard of poly before, the one who is communicating with me online and about whom I am reassured is comfortable with sharing him.

Meeting her directly only cemented my belief that any issues we might have will not be related to "sharing a boyfriend". We got along fantastically. She's intelligent and fun and totally accepting of my place in our mutual guy's life. We got along so well, in fact, that our sweetie (who is not new to the concept of poly but is new to his girlfriends getting along) has been making mock-disparaging remarks about us ganging up on him and how we're not supposed to be getting along so well, and how wierd that is that we're not at each other's throats.

When all the issues with Brian and Julia came up, I have been accused by a few people of being merely biased against newbies and not giving them a fair chance. I don't believe so, but I did take that under consideration. It is easy to confuse my concern over Julia specifically because she was the only one who is actually "new" to poly in any of these situations with my general bias against newbies. Until my new sweetie's other sweetie. So, while I am more cautious about introducing a newbie into my relationship structure, I now have another situation which lends credibility to my belief that it is lack of communication (in both directions) and a "newbie's" difficulty accepting *me* that is causing the problems (the basis for my bias against newbies), not merely a bias against newbies in general that got out of control.

Me and my new metamour are going dancing sometime soon ... without our sweetie :-) I like her. And she's even more local to me than he is! I only wish Sarah could meet her too.

*waves* got pointed to this post, thought I would say hi.

I have a rule for myself from long experience that says "don't be anyone's experiment". It's a challenge when my partners don't have the same rules for themselves that i do for me, though.

Welcome! Yeah, that's my "don't date the mono people" and "don't date the newbies" rule, for basically that reason. But it's more difficult when my partners don't have that same rule for themselves.

A friend of mine and I actually had an interesting conversation with Brian not too long after our breakup that included an analogy about chemistry experiements. Something about the more experienced person is like the "catalyst" in combining two elements (poly & mono) and how in chemistry, the catalyst is the one that usually gets burned up, while the two elements just change into whatever they change into after the explosion. I don't want to be someone's catalyst anymore, I'm tired of getting burned up. As predicted, Brian whole-heartedly agreed with us, no doubt because he didn't see how that analogy related to him.

An excellent article, and one I've added to my memories. :)

Personally, while I understand where you're coming from on the "don't date the mono people" and "don't date the newbies" rules, it's not one I do myself. I've had some very rewarding relationships with people very very new to poly and/or relationships in general; I've just made absolutely sure that I'm totally up front about my own relationship status before they jump feet first into either a relationship with me - or my bed.

There are always exceptions to every rule, and none of my rules are imposed onto other people. But with a clear path of direct communication, the problems one typically finds with dating newbies and mono people are more easily defeated.

But I'm personally tired of being everyone else's experiment. The newbies and mono people can go experiment on others and I'll save my time for people who know who they are and have some idea of what they want, which is compatible with what I want.

Fairy nuff.

A great post! Thanks for sharing that.

Re the experiment issue: I agree.. it's the same conclusion me and my primary partner have come to. If the person doesn't jump up and down shouting yay, this is what I've always dreamed of.. or "this is what you call that thing I've always wanted.." then they should not be considered.

If they do though, then newbies are allowed. I mean, we were all newbies once, right?

Yeah, I'm still not willing to consider "newbies", personally, but I am willing to give my partners' OSOs a chance if they are newbies but are "jumping up and down". Both of my current partners have other girlfriends who are new to poly (neither of which were in the picture when I wrote this entry), but were instantly accepting of poly in a way that some people who claim to be poly never were. So yeah, that kind gets a sort of temporary probation from me, not automatically rejected :-)

Hey, this is Kuros, from the PW Forums.

I really like what you have to say here, but I take major issue with one point:

I don't think that Julia is casting the shadows on your wall. I think John is.

I have just fallen into this kind of drama recently, as a friend of two monogamous women who are being poorly dealt with by the same polyamorous guy. Since both of them care for him, and don't know each other, they both want to blame each other for the shadows on their walls. But the fact is that he's the one who is being disrespectful to both of their boundaries.

Maybe it is different in your case, but I don't see how Julia could be casting shadows on your walls when you can't even talk to her. Even if you were interacting with her, and seeing indications that she is hunting for your guy, it seems to me that John is the one who is creating problems by actively avoiding the actions you need to be reassured that he won't fall into the trap.

That's the "two-fold" point in the story. They were both problematic, but what actually broke us up was how John handled Julia's shadow puppetry. In the first point, Julia really was causing problems by actively refusing to talk to me and being "unpleasant" when asked to trade email addresses with me and Sarah, and all the other stuff that I didn't fully detail here.

But in the second was John's acceptance of the behaviour. If he refused to accept this kind of behaviour, Julia would have been out the door long ago and this would have been a moot point. So it was really John that I had the problem with - Julia merely pointed out our incompatibility in this area (which is a deal-breaker for me).

The reason I say that Julia was causing the shadows at first is because John had originally indicated his displeasure over his previous gf not really being poly and how he wouldn't stand for that kind of subversive behaviour. Julia was the one who was actively avoiding me and Sarah, talking through us when forced into social situations, etc. In this analogy, the "monsters" and "shadow puppets" are fears and insecurities in one's own mind, but Julia was the trigger for all my fears of having my partners leave me for a monogamous girlfriend.
John certainly did not help me banish those fears, and he admits his early actions of preventing us from meeting and asking me to take things slower actually helped encourage the growth of that monster. What he refuses to acknowledge, though, is that my and Sarah's leaving were consequences of his part in things and he continues to believe that our leaving was nothing deeper than our choice to leave.

It was the realization that he would not take responsibility for the damage he caused by his choice to date a mono girl that made me finally leave. Even if I could have gotten Julia to go away, John would not see the connection between his choices/behaviour and my unhappiness and therefore I would end up going through this every time he got a new girlfriend.

As an aside, it's been a couple of years since we broke up, and neither of them has had any other partners since. When last asked, John indicated that Julia was *still* having trouble "emotionally accepting" polyamory, even though she understood it intellectually (which was exactly her position on their first date several years ago). But, since John has no other partners and has been willing to not pursue other partners (make her confront her own internal monsters), she has no real motivation to ever shit or get off the pot. She can just indefinately "work on things", effectively achieving her "monogamous" relationship with John while making him believe he's actually in a poly relationship because she continues to "work on" things. Quite clever, actually.

It's a particularly prickly point that he told me explicitly that he would not amend his selection process in girlfriends to suit me, yet he *has* moderated himself from pursuing *any* new partners to suit Julia over the last couple of years.

Also, part of it was my own fault for not being more forceful or clear in the beginning as to what I needed in the first place. However, Sarah and I did end up making ourselves very clear and he had another 10 months to continue ignoring our pleas while actively working on Julia's "needs" until I got fed up at being expected to be the "perfect poly partner and welcome someone new to the relationship" while she got to snub me at parties and be excused because she actually bothered to show up at all this time.

Although John deserves a lot of credit for his participation in this particular debacle, the reason he didn't push in the first place is because Julia explicitly requested not to have any contact with me and Sarah. So I believe she contributed just as equally to those shadow puppets, especially in the beginning before John fully understood how much it was hurting me.

I'm glad that you can see how each role played into the whole, even if it took you a while to get there. That sort of clarity speaks well for your chances to have happier relationships, imho.

I'm very frustrated with the situation I mentioned, albeit only loosely connected to it. In fact, given how little I know any of the people involved, it's surprising to me how strongly I feel about it. In this case (and from my limited perspective), it seems like paramour is fobbing off all personal responsibility onto the metamours. If he's talking to X, then everything is Y's fault. If he's talking to Y, it's all X's fault.

Yet, he pursued both X and Y, even after they both stated a familiarity with polyamory, and a preference for monogamy. He can't even claim serendipity, since he started pursuing Y months after he'd started dating X.....

Hrm. This would definitely be worth posting to the PW Forums. I'll finish it there.

fortunately, it didn't actually take me all that long to see how both of them were contributing the the problem. Clarity (in the guise of brutal honesty, both about myself and other people) has never been something I lacked. Now, tact and diplomacy - that's another story! ;-)

The part that took me a long time to figure out was that his actions were never going to match his words. I kept holding out for the relationship he *said* he was offering.

I still don't have a good system for getting my heart to feel what my head knows.

....

I have this problem where, whenever a girl tells me she is tactless and undiplomatic, I want to flirt with her.

ROFL!

Well, flirting is at least somewhere that tact and diplomacy are not necessarily required - and sometimes more fun when one is tactless ;-)

Oh, see, now I'm no longer interested.

I just can't stand girls who will ROFL for a guy that quickly. I need the kind of sweet, reserved girl who won't even >.> on the first comment.

Damn, I had no idea you were so easy. Slut.

*duck*

Oh ho, yeah, you better duck! Didn't I mention my irrascible temper?

The phrase "irascible temper" always conjures Elmer Fudd in my mind.

That is not hot.

Have you seen the movie Jeffrey, with Steven Weber and Patrick Stewart? There's this scene where Jeffrey's parents are trying to help him practice having phone sex (long story):

Dad: Jeffrey, what are you wearing?
Jeffrey: uh, boxers and a t-shirt...
Dad: Oh, that's hot.
Mom: That is very hot, dear.

Now, whenever someone says the phrase "That's hot," there's a tiny jewish mother in my head that nods and says, "That's very hot."

You have a very twisted mind :-)

Not twisted! Just, you know, with a few kinks in it.

Oh, and welcome! Nice to see you here - so far I've been appreciating your comments in the forum.

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Joreth

The Inn Between

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