When do you call it over?!

This question has been weighing heavily on my mind for some time.
I started writing this in January of this year and never finished.
Tonight, it feels like the right time to publish what I'd completed thus far.

If you dare, have a look at the strange depths of my thinking...

Way back when...

For me, it's been a reminder of the days when I was married to Sandy. I was so unhappy and I could feel that my grip on reality and the situation at hand was just falling apart. Trying to hold it together, but realizing I had "crossed the rubicon." I would repeatedly say to myself things like:

"You made a promise! She's counting on you! You can't just leave!"

Shit, sometimes what I'd say to myself was significantly worse than that!

Much of the time, I was paralyzed by an overwhelming sense of fear. I'd start to think about questions like:

• What would this mean about me?
• What would other people think?
• What would I do without her?

The fact is that I'd never really known a life without her. She came into my life at a time when I was young, confused, socially awkward, had (almost) zero self-confidence, as was totally unsure about where I was going in my life. Fuck, I was in my early 20s, that's pretty well on-track for that age, right? Exactly.

Yet, at the end of my relationship with Sandy, I felt like I was "a means to an end."
I was being tolerated, because I served a purpose...
I felt as though I was merely useful to her!

That was then, this is now!

Whether I like it or not, being with Sally today, those conversations and feelings are now coming back to the front of my consciousness and consuming me. The similarities are positively eerie. The circumstances have changed, but these themes remain the same. Frankly, it's scaring the shit out of me once again.

I could just chock it up to the move to polyamory, but that's insufficient. Yes, it's likely a significant factor in bringing it to a head so quickly, but it's not the whole story. As I've recorded in previous blogs, Sally and I have had a very tumultuous, rocky relationship. This is something that I identified as a risk early on, yet I continued on anyway. For me, this was truly "love at first sight." I can say in hindsight, love at first sight may not be all it's cracked up to be!

The number of issues that she and I have had have been truly staggering. The amount of shit she's put me through is almost (but not quite) as much as Sandy dished out to me. Still, that's significant.

As I look back on my relationship with Kate, I am just kicking my own ass for not choosing her. There are few things in my life that I truly, completely regret and that's one of them! How does this relate to that? Yes, that's a good question, which I need to address. The fact is that I chose Sally because of the circumstances she was in when she separated. I'd made promises and predictions about how a future together could be. I felt the need to live up to those. If I hadn't, the last safety net she had would be pulled out from underneath her.

It was my attempt at being responsible in the face of changing conditions. I now know that there are very real limits to what one can and should hold themselves personally responsible for. That she took such an action was not irreversible, but it would have led to a radically different life than she has today. Part of this is because I intervened.

My how she has grown...

It's not as though that I didn't realize that being non-monogamous was part of her "DNA" when we got together, it was central to it! That's how we started with each other. Curious and rather ironic, eh? I'll say!

The fact is that, since we've opened up our relationship, she's grown in many exciting ways. I am not against growth or discovering/owing ones true nature. She's really taken this on with great vigor. For me this is both a good and bad thing. I enjoy the growth, but dislike the personal cost that I've had to pay to see it.

This is taking her in directions that are new for her. She's pursuing new interests, meeting new people, having a lot of sex, and engaging with others in ways she's never done before -- all with my explicit permission. I go into this in great detail in other recent posts, so I'm not going to revisit all of it here. The point is that the growth she's experiencing is pretty rapid and phenomenal.

My how we've (seemingly) have grown apart!

I was on a date with someone special a few weeks ago. It was a simple diner and a movie, nothing more. I described the situation and my core issue -- she's moving full speed ahead and it leaves me holding the bag "being useful" (callback to the above comment, eh?). Her simple comment was:

"Oh, that's not good. That won't work"

We got to that in less than 15 minutes. Was I surprised? No, not at all.
In fact, I was relieved. Someone who has been poly for a long time could listen to, understand and come to that evaluation about where our relationship was at.
After the relief came the questions again.

We have been growing apart and I don't believe either of us have been courageous enough to tell the truth about it. In my mind, this is the hardest part of it. Either she doesn't realize it or doesn't want to. I don't know which it is. Either of these really bothers me.

If this direction continues, it won't be if there's a break up, it'll be when that actually occurs.

This makes me profoundly sad.