Tag Archives: relationships are hard

relationshipping, the sex

Living with the ex

isn’t easy.

I’m out, having drinks with friends and it’s getting late.  My phone buzzes, the ex asks if it’s cool for her date to crash on the couch as she’s missed the last train.  The ex goes on to say that her date has to catch the first train (5AM hour).  Sure, I reply.  I feel for anyone who’s missed the last train (side note: it’s annoying that the trains and subways don’t run 24/7), plus the girl will be gone before I need to get ready for my day.

I approach my apartment around 2AM, anticipating the ex and date’s presence but no one’s home.  It’s a bit of a mess so I ask for an ETA and if she wants me to tidy up.  I clean up the living room, ready pillows and a blanket then crash.

…

Holy fuck they’re loud and so fucking drunk.  I roll over, squint at my phone…4:07.  Goddammit.  Why are they even here for less than an hour?  I try to go back to sleep but I’m annoyed so sleep is a hard sell.  Just. Sleep.  Fucking sleep.

The date’s pretty loud; my ex hushes her a few times, as successfully as a wasted person can.  Then they start making out.  There’s something so fucking distinct about make out sounds and apparently I can’t filter that shit out.  And I’m currently pissed.  WHY didn’t they stay out?  What’s 45 more minutes of hanging making out before her first train?  They can make out someplace— oh shit, please don’t have them do the sex.  I’m tired, currently cranky and simply don’t have it in me to listen to my ex doing it.

So.

Enter music library.
Select all songs, random play.
Turn the volume UP.

I hear an, “Oh shit.”
Then silence save for some CHVRCHES song.

Phew.

I’ve already witnessed one ex make the new GF orgasm, an ex-roommate fucking potential BF; I sure as hell don’t need a repeat.
The shit sparks some emotional reactions and once twice is enough.

I’m able to sleep for about two hours before I beat my alarm to a wake up.  I’m hopeful that the place will be cleared.  And by ‘cleared’, if I mean that a half-naked ex and date are strewn on the couch, then total success has happened.  They’re so passed out from many hours of drinking— god, I can smell the sweet-stale sweat reek of last night/this morning’s booze wafting off of them…hey, hooray for not worrying about tip-toeing as I get ready.  This small detail relieves me and my irritation level immediately drops; after all, I’m sincerely happy that my ex had, clearly, a successful first date with this girl.

Living with the ex: it’s not intolerable but it’s not ideal and sometimes just plain hard.

Then there’s me, my actions, the hurt they cause said ex.
But that warrants its own post.

 

 

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relationshipping

The joke

My eyeballs need cocaine

is on me.
Again.

So there’s nothing like time and distance to get over someone.
I excise the other from my life to move on.
It really helps.

I think I’ve got recovering from heartbreak down— yea!
I create emotional distance through physical distance.
I make sure our worlds don’t collide and my brain-heart is trained: the second I sniff voluntary distance (from me or the other), emotional detachment follows.

As usual, when I’m pretty confident that I can get through one emotional puzzle, the universe throws a giant hamster ball in my path.
I get a conundrum wrapped in the guise of a three-part love present.

1) I fall for someone.
2) I fall hard.
3) It’s. Long. Distance.

Of course it is.
Motherfucker.

I have trained my instincts so well that this situation is a mindfuck.
What— get close to someone when they’re countless miles and time zones away?
Are we really establishing a foundation over text?!
This sounds stupid and I shake my head at myself.

Except for the damn love, people.

And we meet so seldom that every time feels like the first time.
What am I doing?

Usually I fall in love and into a relationship like the oldest lesbian U-Haul joke we all know.
I need to learn how to pace myself in a relationship but I don’t know if this— the complete opposite— is the answer.
But it sure as hell is a lesson in a different kind of patience.

I tell myself to stay in the moment and relax when we meet even though my brain knows the moment has a very short lifespan.  There are so many thoughts, stories, feelings of the mundane and extraordinary I want to share but when I’m confronted with T minus 150 minutes and counting— I am rendered mute because my heart beats in time to the tick-tick-tock of the countdown clock.  And what are words when I can actually touch this person?  Because we’ve been wording 6,000 times over for the past too many days.

I give in to the clock; I acknowledge but don’t begrudge its presence.
I experience the moment since this moment is what I have.

I am grateful.
And excited.

And terrified.

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open relationship

What if…

What if

and there are so many what ifs swimming in my head.

Sometimes an open relationship makes me think (and I probably shouldn’t think about things that haven’t happened but I can’t help it):
What if I end up being attracted to a woman?  What then?
GF has maintained that as long as we’re together, the only woman she will be attracted to is me.  But this could change, depending on the person…right?
Or
What the fuck if I meet someone and what we end up having is so *&♥^∞%!!! that I rethink open relationship and end it?…What if she does?

Of course there’s no need to seriously dialogue hypothetical musings but the second we agreed to open relationship, these what ifs enter my mind.

In Realityland, we just need to communicate the hell out of communication.
And I’m constantly amazed at how every crevice of my preconceived notions of sexual identity and definitions of romantic relationships have changed.  When BF turned GF a frighteningly beautiful thing happened: the traditional notion of expectations were flung far and wide out the window.

Here’s what we expect now: raw honesty.
That’s it.
Which can be a lot because honesty when adjusting to an open relationship can hurt and definitely has uncomfortable as fuck moments but it’s the only way to sincerely try to make it work.

So I haiku because sometimes a 5-7-5 is the best way to process.

Matters of the heart,
Truth: anything can happen.
sometimes scared as fuck.

Is it too much?  More than I can handle?
Perhaps.
On the one hand, yeah, it’s a lot.  I ask questions and sometimes feel insecure in ways that most people choose not to in a committed relationship.  Hell, some would say the whole point of monogamy is to eliminate a certain insecurity.  

But then again, insecurity strikes any relationship, monogamous or not.
And aren’t levels of honesty and acceptance of said honesty the ultimate make-it-or-break-it factor in any significant relationship?
You’re honest or you’re not.  Any relationship could end at any moment.  I guess in mine there’s simply no room for hiding/repressing/suppressing; being with GF makes me deal with a lot of what ifs head-on.  Between her transition, an international move and an open relationship my comfort zone lies in what was uncomfortable.

So my previous discomfort is now oddly homey.

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relationshipping

She expected me to leave

She expected me to leave

but instead I stayed.

If she hadn’t come out to me, I would’ve left.
Strange?
Not so much if you know the why.

7 months of dating, cohabitating and…
we’re still getting to know each other but a little something is missing…nothing I can articulate or am losing sleep over but there’s a faint yellow light blipping on my radar.

10 happy coupled months have passed but something’s up.  It’s like we were rambling through this curious and enchanting forest, noticing randomly fascinating, new and endearingly odd things about each other and then- bam.  I hit an unexpected beige wall.

Why the boring, all of a sudden?  I know there’s way more to him than what he’s presenting these days.  It’s as though his brain is on auto-pilot and a certain spark is missing.  It’s a vague-ish subject to broach but I try…
Me: Um, are you not bored these days?  Because I am.  And frustrated.
Him: I wish I had time to be bored.  He does have a crazybusy schedule.  Maybe he’s just over his lack of him-time?
Me: It doesn’t feel like we’re in a weird, stagnant place?
Him: Well, we are because we both want to move.  Okay, I didn’t mean it so literally.  And you’re not making enough art.  If you made more art, you’d be happier.
Hmm…if this is his way of deflecting, it’s working.  But he’s being sincere and he speaks the truth so…I put the focus on myself and draw some damn unicorns with exploding goiters.

15 months, we’ve decided Tokyo is our destination city and we’ve got 11 months to get our shit together.
As I ponder an us, looking towards the future, this bit happens:
Him: When I can completely share everything with you, then I’ll know I can really commit to you.
Me: Oh.  Ouch.  We’re about to move 7,000+ miles away and maybe at some arbitrary point you’ll know you can commit?  We don’t even have the same definition of commit, do we?  Oh fuckfuckfuck.  

And now I feel like a fool.
I trust him enough to trust him with everything; at the same time, there’s nothing more I can do/be for him to trust me.

So I start to retreat; clearly I had mistaken the us in the future.

At 18 months he comes out to me.
Thank. Fucking. God.
This is everything?
Now maybe we can try to have a relationship.

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