Compersion? Me?

Last night I stayed up late. Mike was running a Dungeons and Dragons game with some friends and so he came home late. I have trouble sleeping when he doesn’t tuck me in, so I waited up. Even though it impacted my schedule a little bit, I was happy that Mike got to do it. Not only did I enjoy the time to myself, but I was really happy for Mike that he got to go have fun. He’d been looking forward to it and he likes to be social and this type of thing is fun for him. I was happy that he was happy.

But then it occurred to me. How I felt about Mike’s D&D session was not significantly different from how I felt the other week when Mike did a demo rope and wax scene with a girl in front of her friends. I missed him, sure, but I was glad he was getting to go have fun and do stuff. At the time I didn’t think about it, but if I’m not mistaken, that’s a pretty textbook case of compersion.

I’m feeling really pleased with myself. I’d always thought of compersion as something beyond my reach. Jealousy for me was both inevitable and all-consuming. But now I don’t feel depressed all the time and I feel more confident and secure in myself and my relationship. I guess compersion requires a solid foundation. It really does feel good. It’s so much easier to be happy for someone you love than it is to struggle and fight and feel hurt and irrationally angry.

I wish I understood better how I moved from that bad place to this good one. It’s easy to blame it on the depression. But I wonder if it’s not that simple. Being depressed really shredded my self worth and my sense of myself as a person with value. And I’ve been working really hard to rebuild myself. I’ve practiced letting go of intrusive thoughts. My relationship with Mike is great. That’s all taken effort, but at the same time I feel like it has to be more than that. Non-monogamy has been good to me lately. I’m having fun and it’s not felt like a threat to my relationship. Maybe my mental health freed my mind to be receptive to the fact that I can see other people and still love Mike the same.

This was supposed to be a happy post, but I worry it got sort of rambling and incoherent. It’s just so nice when things are smooth and easy and I’m still not used to that.

Special day

Today feels like a special day and I’m not sure why. I don’t have class today, so it’s like the start of a weekend. My week has been a perfect storm of family health stress, new-semester nerves, BDSM group politics and personal problems. But now it’s over and I can relax.

Last night Mike and I had a friend over. I made dinner and we ate and had wine and then did a BDSM scene where they both spanked me. Then we ate pie and watched a movie. It was a ton of fun and very easy. There was nothing hard about it (well, the scene was physically hard, but nothing was emotionally difficult). No fear, no jealousy. Just friendship and fun and love. It was yet another really gratifying reminder of the best parts of non-monogamy for me.

Then today, the two of us had lunch with a couple of friends who were visiting from out of town. It was really fun to catch up. They are people we know from the kink scene, so we got to hear them compare the community here to the one where they live now, which is something I’m always interested about. Tomorrow I’m going to a friend’s birthday party and Sunday I’m having lunch with friends. All in all, it’s a pretty social weekend for me.

I’m laying here in comfy pajamas, with my dog sniffing around and my boyfriend in his usual good mood and I’m contemplating all the fun things in my life and stretching out and appreciating the fact that I can just be lazy for the rest of the day. It feels like a sick day but without the hassle of being sick. I’m feeling so grateful: for Mike and for our relationship, for the friends I can be myself around, for the fun opportunities I have, for my grades last semester. I’m going to spend the rest of the day watching murder mysteries and being happy.

Ringing in the New Year right

I had a perfect New Year’s Eve. I picked up a friend and we went to a fetish party at the house of one of the first people I met when I got into the scene. I chatted and socialized. Before Mike showed up I had a nice chat with the girl he hung out with this week. We even talked about what they did together without me getting uncomfortable.  Then Mike came, we kissed at midnight. We watched some scenes and did one ourselves. I flirted with a girl or two and got to feel a couple people up. Then, just as I was getting tired, I dropped my friend off at her house and came home. Mike and I walked the dog and he tucked me into bed and I fell asleep feeling really grateful for everything I have and optimistic for the year ahead.

I woke up today with that feeling intact. I’m getting 2014 started off right. I’m reconnecting with a high school friend and meeting his wife. Then I’m going to a discussion meeting about power dynamics. Tomorrow Mike and I are spending some time together. Next week we have our friend coming over, and the week after that we’re going to try to get dinner with a couple we don’t see often enough. Classes start again next week, but my textbooks are all ordered and cost less than $100. I have things I’m excited about coming up.

Busy day

Mike and I had an unfortunately scheduled day today. In the afternoon, I had a play-date with the guy I’ve been seeing. Then at night Mike went over to a friend’s house to tie her up and do a rope demo for a couple of her friends. On the other hand, it felt kind of pleasantly balanced. And even though we both had our other interests and activities, it was nice because I never doubted our love and commitment.

I wasn’t really jealous about Mike’s plans at first. The friend is someone I know and like, and I know she doesn’t want to take my place. Then I thought about Mike possibly tying up her friend and felt a little jealous because I don’t know her, but it was only for a few seconds and then I talked myself out of that. I think it’s just a fear of the unknown.

Really, the hardest part about him going off to tie someone was that I missed out on some time with him on a day when I was tired and feeling affectionate. But we’ve spent a lot of time together lately and it’s been a lot of good, quality time. I think I finally understand what people mean when they say that if you are getting everything you need from the relationship, it’s easy to share your overabundance with others. Of course, a lot of the scarcity I used to feel was internal and not Mike’s fault, but now that I feel confident and secure, I’m not preoccupied with a fear of losing him and I can let him have the freedom we both value without being clingy.

Two steps forward, one step back

I had a little jealousy this week, but I attribute it to finals stress. Mike had plans to fire cup someone at a fetish party. Ordinarily it would be no big deal and I’d be fine, and if it had been private plans I might have felt different, but I was feeling stressed and vulnerable so the thought of watching him play with someone else was really stressful for me. I had been feeling insecure because I was depressed all week and misinterpreting Mike’s general tiredness as him not wanting to be around me. It was just a confluence of minor things that made me feel jealous, and I’m hoping that this isn’t how things are going to be again.

I hung out with my own outside partner today and had a good time. Coming home to Mike after seeing someone else is always nice. I have fun, but then I am glad to see him. He’s still the person I want to live with and spend my life with, and being reminded that non-monogamy doesn’t change that is always good for me. That’s a point I’ve made before on this blog, but it’s something that I always notice.

I got a compliment

I recently became one of the group leaders of my local younger crowd BDSM group. That in itself is a compliment, but that’s not the one I’m talking about. One of the former group leaders, and the guy who was the embodiment of this group when Mike and I joined the scene together, messaged me to say congratulations. Then he said that he’s happy I’m going to be involved with leadership because I’m “one of the most reasonable people” he knows. I know that sounds like a nice compliment, but maybe not one worth blogging about. But as someone with mental illnesses, I always worry about being called “crazy” or “irrational.” Being called reasonable made me feel like a normal, competent human being. And that’s pretty much my goal in life.

Putting non-monogamy in its place

I rarely blog about my exploits with partners other than Mike. He jokes that it makes it sound like our relationship is lopsided and that he’s having sex all the time and I’m sitting at home. That’s not the case, but for a while I was disinterested in seeing anyone else, and even when I do I don’t always have anything to say about it.

Friday night Mike and I went to a Halloween party and I got spanked, and then yesterday I spent time with a guy that whom I used to do BDSM scenes with semi-regularly. He’s a close friend of Mike and I. We chatted about mutual friends, then did an impact play scene, and then ate Chinese food and cuddled and watched TV for a couple of hours. It was great! And then I decided that I had so much fun with someone else I didn’t love Mike anymore or feel attracted to him. Oh wait, that last part didn’t happen. Mike thinks that when I have fun with someone else, it’s good for my jealousy because I realize that it doesn’t change my feelings for him and so it won’t for him either. And it’s true that last night I had a blast and still was excited to come home to Mike and wouldn’t change our relationship for the world. He’s meeting a girl for coffee or drinks or something later this week, and I hope I can carry that lesson with me.

I think when I was depressed, non-monogamy became something weird and scary and big. Part of my healing process is putting it back in its rightful place as something normal and fun and happy. After my date-thing, Mike and I had a great evening. We made brownies and watched Futurama and then cuddled in bed and talked. I aspire to that same level of normalcy and OK-ness the next time he goes out with someone else.

Get your party guests naked

In my last post, I mentioned having some people over and playing some games. After I wrote it, I figured I should share the magic of our favorite adult party game. We found this at a fetish party a couple of years ago and adopted it as our own. We call it Kinky Jenga, although you can modify it for an orgy game, a drinking game or a getting-to-know you game.

You will need:

• A set of Jenga blocks
• Markers
• Poster board

Here’s what you do:

1. Take your Jenga pieces and, using the marker, number them from one to 54. Write the number on the long part of the block, so that you can’t see which number it is when they are all stacked up in the tower.
2. On your poster board, make a numbered list of 54 tasks. We have ones like “Lick the nipples of the person next to you,” “take a spanking from everyone in the room” or “sit out the next round in a hog tie.”
3. Set up the Jenga tower and start to play.
4. Each time a player pulls a block, she or he must perform the task of the corresponding number after stacking the block at the top of the tower. If anyone is unwilling to do the task, they take 10 hits with a paddle.
5. The person who knocks over the tower takes 15 hits with a paddle.

Anyway, it’s not rocket science, but it’s a fun little game that can escalate a party and get people to participate. And by numbering the blocks, you can change the rules each time you play.

Yeah, I’m kind of a badass

When Mike and I first decided to be monogomish for a while, I was determined to spend that time thinking and pondering and philosophizing until I was the most confident, least monogamous person ever. But then, for a long time, I didn’t. I’ve had a lot of other things going on, some good and some bad, and I just needed a break from thinking about jealousy and insecurity. Instead I focused a lot on other aspects of my life and making myself happier in general.

Apparently giving myself some time to be a healthier person without worrying about my old fears and hang-ups was exactly what I needed.

Last week, we had a few friends over. I happened to be having some neck/back/shoulder problems, so I was pretty drugged up and spent the evening sitting on the couch with a supportive neck pillow. But I was glad to have company, because I’d been feeling pretty bored. Everyone started playing a sort of kinky-type game, but I couldn’t participate because I couldn’t move much. At first it was fine: I became the rules arbitrator and chatted while they played. But as the night wore on, watching Mike get to do lightly kinky, pants-on play with other girls while I couldn’t participate started to feel kind of shitty. Instead of spiraling into self-pity and resentment and acting weird for the rest of the evening, I was able to talk to myself and relax a bit. I was still jealous, but it stayed at a low level where I was still more or less OK. After a little while, I started to feel like if I kept watching I would feel worse. So I told our guests that my meds were making me sleepy and I went into the bedroom and read a book on my Kindle.

After everyone went home, Mike came in and we talked. I was feeling grumpy and left out, so I was a little prickly at first, but we talked until we were on the same page. He reassured me a little and I went to bed happy. I know that all of this sounds so minor. And it really is a silly thing to worry about, like, God forbid he touches breasts that aren’t mine, but watching him flirt and touch other women in front of me would have been a much, much bigger deal just a few months ago.

This was the first time I’ve had to deal with jealousy since we reorganized things and the fact that I handled it better than I would have before made me feel optimistic that we can eventually have a successful transition back into non-monogamy. Even though parts of that evening were hard for me, I’m really glad that it happened because I woke up the next day feeling pleased with myself for my progress.

Getting involved in the poly community

So two important things happened to me yesterday. The first (and arguably most important), is that I got over my aversion to Jane Austen fan fiction. I’m currently reading this charming piece about Miss Anne de Bourgh, and I now own copies of both Death Comes to Pemberley and Spank Me, Mr. Darcy. But the other, more relevant to this blog thing, is that I went to a meet-up for ethically non-monogamous people.

I’ve been involved with my local BDSM/kink community for a few years now, and there is a lot of overlap between the two groups, but my town has never had an organized poly/non-monogamy group that I’m aware of. This was a new group’s first meeting. As I anticipated, the group was mostly poly people. I consider myself to be in an open relationship, as Mike and I don’t really date our other partners romantically, but I feel like I identify more with poly people than a lot of other ethically non-monogamous folk. I was the only non-poly person there, but the group is trying to include more types of relationships, like swingers and people like me. And of course, poly means something slightly different in every relationship anyway. We talked about a variety of issues, including poly in the media (this blog came up in conversation), raising children, jealousy and vetting other partners.

Talking with other people was interesting and fun and I learned some stuff, but mostly it just made me feel really capable of continuing to be non-monogamous. I struggle sometimes, but last night I came home feeling connected and supported and like I had new energy to make it work. Sometimes I get discouraged, but right now I’m feeling good about things. I saw a long-distance play partner who was in town the other night, Mike and I have been having great conversations about how we feel about each other and what we want our relationship to look like, and now I feel a little more connected to the poly community, which is somehow giving me the confidence to feel like this is no big deal.