Not an end but a transformation.

Sometimes, things change and this time, those things were a relationship status.

I have had a primary partner for around a year now with other partners as well from both sides. It has worked well sometimes and less well some other times. As it is in most relationships.

But for a while, something has been feeling off. Bouts of jealousy have sparked and while that is completely ok and has been handled, there has also been an increasing need for safety and stability amid a quite chaotic everyday life.
Read me right here, I do not demand that my relationships should be perfect but in a world where work I'm under a lot of stress both in my work, living situations, and private plus adding the world depression on top of that. All in all, it creates a situation where I will look to all aspects of my life to minimize stress and drama.
For work, it means working sustainably and not burn myself out.
For living, it means looking over my economy and seeing that I have it all in order and cutting down things to make sure it works.
For myself, it means, for example, being outside, training more and doing things that give energy.

Relationship-wise, it meant that I had to take a detailed look at my wants and needs and what would work in the long run.

On one side, I had my want to be able to continue to kiss, love and be with beautiful people and partners.
On the other side, it was the stress and drama it caused and the effect it had on myself.

When I looked at it, I felt that my need for safety and stability did not match my want to be poly.
It was just too many factors that did not add up at this point in life.

That is completely alright.

After all, we are just humans and wants and needs do not always match. The only thing I could do then was to be as honest as I could, sit my primary partner down and have the talk. 

With that came a transformation in our relationship where the focus will be on just us and de-stressing for now.

Of course, it also came with relationship transformations regarding my other partners, flirts and comets but I will cover that later in its own blogposts.

As of now, this is how the situation is now and the ironic thing is that I now have more energy than before to talk, think and analyze poly. 

How weird life can be in that way.

Transformations can be painful, hard and wonderful but in the end, they are necessary for all aspects of life. 

Relationships and poly are no different in that way.

The drama solution

As many people, I have a bit of a people pleaser in me and wish to make everyone around me happy.  It´s quite common and my experience is that when I'm in poly relationship, I usally take on a big part of the responsibility in trying to make everyone feel happy. 

From my partners, to metamours, to lovers...Yes, I want everyone to be happy and most important - I do not want any drama. 

Hence I often have been bending over backwards to make sure people are happy to avoid drama. 

Perfect!

Or not.

Because in that process, I have forgotten about a very important person.

Me. I forget about myself and my needs and wants and I forget that in every relationship, mono or poly, it should be teamwork.

It should not be my responsibility to make sure that my partners are communicating about important things that affects our relationship.  Or checking in that they sticking to the agreements we made.

That they forget again and again is simply not good enough.

I cannot take all the responsibility for the communication of my partners to others and myself. Especially not when it comes from a place of hope to avoid drama and keep people happy.

That is just wrong. 

I can try to take care of everyone's needs but if no one, least of all myself, is taking care of my own... then, it will be an overload of feelings from others that I need to manage and that is not fair to anyone.

What I can do is keep my own wants and needs in clear check, communicate about it and stick to my boundaries and from there - build great relationships.

The solution for avoiding drama was so simple in the end that I did not see it clearly.

The drama stops when I put myself first.

Better lover than partner?

"I'm a much better lover and mistress than I am in being a partner."

 I do not remember when I started to say that. 

It was pretty early in my polylife and while I had lovers and even a pretty steady relationship with feelings at that point, I was still finding my way in this new jungle.

My lovers yes.. they were usually friends.. dear friends that became lovers, we kissed, breathed hard, felt lust and it ended up becoming sex. We loved it and for me, it was freeing. 

But the line between when I was a friend vs a lover was very hard to balance for me. And there were so many greyzones that both me and them were confused about.

Was I ok with listening to them talking about other girls they wanted to hook up with? 

Was I ok with knowing that a picknick in the sun most likely would lead up to my room and become something else, even thought I was tired?

Were they ok with me asking for kisses at the club and more than a hug sometimes?

Was were both ok with just... seeing the other one falling in love and kiss someone else? After all, we were just friends so... should we talk about it?

Most of these, we solved along the way and since we were friends from the start, we avoided the hurt.After a while, we went from lovers to friends and things went on.

But that feeling of being a friend more than someone exciting and special for my lovers stayed. So when I got new lovers that were not friends, I made a point of being just a lover and I tried so hard not to go in to the supporting-friend-and-listener-mode.

And failed horrible sometime cause I was just human.

When talks come to be a partner, a girldfriend or whatever... I felt hesitant. I was afraid of being the boring alternative, the one that my partner had as a safe alternative or as a comfy thing at home. I felt that I would become boring, stop caring about myself and just... be the very casual me that I was at home. In my comfy pants, with chips and not sexy all the time.

As a lover, I felt in control cause.. I did not have to show all parts of me. No vulnerability, no rough patches and all could be shiny.

If I was just me, I had to open up, let people in and most of all.. I could not guard my heart.

Over the years, I stumbled, fell and tried. I let people in, I loved and I was loved. But that little voice was always in my head and it still pops up sometimes.

What if I open up, was just myself and then got dumped because I was boring, sad one day or just not sexy enough?

I know that these toughts comes from a place of hurt and fear based on a lot of bad expeiences and that they are not correct.

I am rather a whole person with the ones that I want fully in my life, with vulnerabilities, feelings and intimacy. Because that love is worth everything and more.

So yes, I am a much better lover and mistress than a partner because I can play a role that I have full contol over. But  I am the best partner when it really happens.

Lust and giving in

Lust is something so tricky for me sometimes.

I was afraid to give in to lust for a long time because I had always been so cautious with showing that I wanted someone. 
I did not want to come off as a slut (THANKS PATRIARCHY!), risk hurting someone or making others think I did not care about them.

I wrote a blog post about it here how important the connection is for me in 9/10 times and I also wrote about the 10th time when it's when I just go for it because I desperately want that person. That is still the case.
But I am much better to feel into my lust and wants these days AND doing it on my terms, not stressing about it cause someone else wants sex but until we both want it.

What I want to tell my younger self that had read so much about sex in her books, who knew that it was something called orgasm but never really felt it or knew her body properly....

...That you will have so much great sex because you can't keep your hands off another person and you both want to just drown in that feeling. You will have sex in the most weird places and times just because you feel into your lust.

And it will be wonderful.

Seduce me with consent

So I want to talk about consent and how sexy it is for me.

This might seem obvious, but I'm old and have been to too many parties in the past where consent wasn't really clear.

There, I kissed the person who kissed me back. Of course, I did. But first, after they had kissed me and hugged me and groped me without asking and I felt like well I just go along with it.

It just felt easier. I think many of you might recognize that feeling when one felt it would be more challenging to say no than just continue down this road and accept.

Not a great thing and it fucked up my view on what I wanted, really wanted for many years when it came to sex and intimacy.
I have tried to do my best for myself over the years to ask for consent but also to be clear if I do not want something.

This weekend I meet so many people and it was wonderful. It´s one of those spaces where I just feel free, safe and myself. I danced, I laughed and I kissed so many people and received so many kisses.  

It hit me somewhere during the second night how ever-present I experience consent to be in that space and how safe it makes me feel.

And most of all, how damn sexy it is.

It's something incredibly sensual and respectful with that small moment when you're just getting close to another person, someone raises an eyebrow or just looking at you a bit more and you give the nod back. Then you kiss and for me, that small moment of consent before the kiss is something that really heightens the experience so much.
It's today one of my top sensual things than that kind of concern. Not just in kissing but for example when I have someone's hand on the side of my chest when we kiss. Then they do that lil tapping with their fingers, just a bit to ask "Can I slide my hand further down and I can nod with the kiss and then I just melt.

I just love that and during this weekend, I realized how far I come from that girl that said yes to things she did not want to. Now I only say yes to what I want, I lean into myself and listen to what I want AND I listen to what others want (The best I can and I hope I succeed).

This weekend, consent was everywhere and with that, I also had those times where they and I knew that we could just drown in each other. Because consent was there before

Well, this is perhaps not the most coercive blog post I've written.But I just want to say that in that little raised eyebrow, in that little nod, in that whispered "Is this OK" or "Can I kiss you"...  is more sensuality than so much more than I've been through during my teenage years and that is worth it's own words.

Jealousy and insecurities

We have finally got to this point and it is perhaps the thing I get the most questions about. Since I am poly/having poly relations, do I get jealous?

Of course not. That would be beneath me.

No, seriously, let's get one thing very clear:

I get jealous and insecure. End of story.

Or rather, the start of something new when I finally could admit to myself and my partners that it happened.
It was a big step for me to admit my jealousy, embrace it and take the lead over my feelings and separate them from my reactions.


Why?


Well, it is a tricky story. One thing I got to learn when I first started with poly was that if I was truly poly, I would not feel jealous. If I did that, I was the worst and should be ashamed of myself.

So I suppressed those feelings, pushed them down and kept blaming myself over the fact that while I loved two, three and even four wonderful persons at the same time; I still felt jealous and insecure over my place in their life.

With all this and getting told that I did not have the right to feel and even analyze and react to my feelings, nor communicate about them to the persons I was with; I came to the conclusion that I was the worst person in the history of humankind.

As you could guess, it did not do anything good for my relationships and it pushed my self-love to an absolutely low level.

Fast-forward to today where I wish I could go back and tell my younger self the obvious thing:

“Hey, it is ok to be jealous. It is ok to feel insecure and in need of validation from partners. These feelings are valid and you have the full right to feel them. Just don’t flip out but breathe, see what you need and then talk about it.”

Today, I am very well aware that I get jealous when I'm in a romantic relationship. I am only human and those feelings I have, show up but these days, I have pretty good knowledge of what I need in a relationship to feel safe.

I need validation, I need time, touch and words of affirmation. I need to feel that a partner is there for me, not to heal and be my second half but to know that I can rely on them and that they love and appreciate me even on my bad days.

I need to feel loved.

So when jealousy and insecurities happen these days, I dive into that feeling, I rest in it and I take control.
Meaning that I analyze what it is that lies behind that feeling.

• Is my jealousy based on a fear of being replaced?
• Or feeling that I get too little time with a partner?
• To little touch? To little sex (if the relationship contains that)?
• Do I feel insecure because I do not know the status of our relationship?
• Am I feeling like a secret and not like a part of my partners' life?
• Do I feel like I do not get a mental exchange with my partner?
• Or is it that I feel like I hold all the space for a partner but they do not hold any for me?

The reasons can be many and it is my task to sort out the root of my feelings. Then it is my responsibility to communicate it to my partner and tell them what is bothering me and what I need from them.

• It can be more time.
• More validation and kindness.
• It can be to just be listened to.

It is my task to be clear in analyzing my feelings and to communicate them but it is my partners' task to listen and hopefully meet my reaction with an open heart and understand that my will to talk about this comes from a wish for us to be stronger and better together.

Then, of course, there will always be moments when I do not separate feelings from reactions and perhaps overthink things way too much. But at least I know about it and I make it clear to my partners from start.

And with that, we can do the work together.

Mono or poly - Why not both?

Do I fall for one person or can I have feelings for many? Am I monogamous or polyamorous? 

Well. I am neither. And I am both.

This took a while to figure out and it was a looong way that is still not done. But I started out as monogamous only wanting to be with one person and that person should only be with me. And it worked.

Then I fell in love with one person that was not mono and I felt it was ok. Then I fell in love with another person at the same time and then another one.
The realization there that I did not have to choose but that I could love these people, have them in my life and they could love me was…mindblowing.
Of course, it took a lot of communication, transparency and more communication. Sometimes I fucked up because I was a baby poly then and was not great at communicating all the time…

I was in a wonderful relationship for ten years where we were poly a bit on and off. But for five years or even more, we were mono and only had feelings and sex with each other.

And after that, I had relationships with multiple people again.

Who said this was gonna be easy? 

But in short, I found the term ambiamorous lately and it kinda fits me like a glove. It points to people that can have both monogamous and polyamorous relationships and have no preferences in what is better or fits them the whole time.
They can have feelings towards only one partner or multiple partners at the same time.

Looking back at my life, it feels very clear that ambiamorous is the way I have lived my relationships in. I do not think poly is superior and I do not think mono is the only way to go.

It is just a question about feelings, respect and communication.

When things end and why it is ok.

 Here we are, in the year 2023 and a lot of things have changed for me.

My partner and anchorperson choose to end our relationship in early 2022. It was a huge sadness for me. We had been in a relationship for three years and I truly loved him and was soft with him in a way I had not dared to be in a long time.

When he wanted to end it, I was upset and sad but of course, I accepted it.

His feelings are valid and so are mine but that does not mean that our feelings in a breakup are the other parts to take care of.

Cause sometimes, love ends and feelings die and that has to be ok. I had to respect that he wanted to end it and then I had to go and handle my feelings of hurt and sadness with friends and family.

Our relationship lasted for three years with us living together for two years and handling a pandemic together. We started out as lovers with several comets and relationships around us but when the pandemic happened, we stayed with just us. Not because we decided to close it but because of safety and health. Simply put, you do not mess around in a pandemic. We both wanted to say healthy and be able to visit our families and hang out with close friends in bubbles.

Bringing in new lovers and partners was not an option in this and we both took that decision of free will and with happiness.

It worked very well with just being us and we were talking more and more about opening up for separate partners and play partners as well.

But life happened.

When it comes to breakups and separation in poly, those are just as painful and emotional as breakups in mono relationships, at least for me. It is the loss of a partner and a friend and in this case, in the aftermath, it was simply no option for me to keep him in my life anymore.
And that hurt.
It is hard to let go of a person who has become a huge part of my life and put down that boundary, but it was necessary and made the grief even deeper.

I’m very lucky to have a great family and amazing friends that have given me neverending emotional support to me over these past months and that has helped me a lot.

Since it ended, I have not had any desire to start a new relationship.

Kisses and more of course with beautiful people cause I really can’t resist that.

But right now, I am happy by myself without any partners. I wrote it before: my friends and family take up so much time and love in my life. They are my biggest support and primary partners in life so I am not really alone. And with that, I can take on the new year with a calm heart and a rest in myself.

So many thoughts, so little time.

Woha! It is 2023 and perhaps, it is time to take up this blog again.

It has happened A LOT since 2020 with both good and bad things and that have of course made me reflect over poly, relationship and self-value. 

So... let's see what the year brings!

But it’s all feelings! Highway to all or nothing.

(Witten in 2020)

One never knows when love will hit but it did. When I got back into poly, I did not want to be in a relationship but I wanted to have the freedom to have feelings, have sex and to feel.

And as you know, I got a bit burned during this year but I never felt that I was looking for something serious. I focused on work and rebuilding my life as single after ten years in a loving relationship.
But I would lie if I said that the feeling did not creep up on me in one case. 

I pushed it away but looking back, I can see the signs of me being a bit too invested:

Like showing vulnerability.

Like keeping a drunken promise of not playing any games (it would have been so easy to play games and he would never had known)
Like booking more dates and all the traveling.

Like holding space of my own free will and also letting him into my thoughts

Like us talking for hours without end.

The realization that I loved him hit me in the head like a ton of bricks the day after new years eve. 

It was horrible. 

I did not want to love him or be in love. I did not want to have feelings for someone so far away and I did not want to risk being hurt again.

I wanted to bury the feelings and never bring it up for myself again. But I’ve done that so many times before because I had to in previous relationships. (Hooray for being a secret way too many times.. Or not) .

This time, I could choose what I wanted to do and I did not want to lie to myself, nor to him. I also made a promise that I would live a life without regrets for 2020.

So when we spoke a couple of days later, I told him.

Turned out he felt the same.

So I started the year with love. And a huge fear of being hurt and having to remind myself 1000 times that all of my past bad experiences are just that -  past bad experiences.
We started to plan more and more things. Having projects together. Wanting to go to conferences together. Wanting to spend birthdays together. Me staying there for ten days and working.

Still with only being lovers and with a huge fear from me.
Then the pandemic happened ( I will write a bit more about my thoughts about being in a pandemic and being poly in the upcoming months) and we wanted to be together instead of being at different sides of a border. Perhaps for two weeks.  We ended up spending almost 4 months living together. It worked very well.
We argued about what we meant to each other and landed in being anchorpersons.

We relaxed, went on adventures and were in a bubble of us.

I cried so much when he had to go home and I never felt so...weak and dependent. This was not me, not the independent and strong person that I had made for myself.

I had to remind myself that it’s ok to feel, to love and be in love and that it’s ok to miss him.

And now we are both in this. Being poly or in an open relationship. Being partners and anchorpersons.  Loving and trying and waiting to see where this all brings us.

The perks of not being a flavor.

(Written in 2019)

There is a big drawback that I have discovered when I got back into poly. 

Perhaps it’s the new times, perhaps it’s the fact that I don’t have a big polycircle of friends that I can sleep with, have sex with or being intimate on a casual basis or perhaps it’s the boring thing that I don’t have a primary.

The drawback is that I am seen as a… flavor, a fun adventure or exotic.

And that fucking breaks me down into a million pieces.

I don't know if it’s the poly thing or the non-primary-situation but it has happened a bit too many times during the last year for me to think it’s fun.

I wrote about it before and for me it’s so important to have value in most of my relations and even in sex. I want to connect and I want to talk afterwards. 

And I can have sex for fun just once, that's not the thing here.

It’s when I get lied to about them having a girlfriend, (not not not fun to discover later on)getting suggestions about spending the night even when they have wifes (that always makes me feel like a whole evening is kinda ruined) or the standard that they want to be with a dark girl for sex.

I hate it so much. 

Sometimes when this happens after fun evening out, I start to wonder if I have done something wrong to get all of these morons coming to me.But as you know, I can’t flirt even if my life depends on it and most of the times I have just been me, discussing games, nerdy stuff, sharing jokes and drinking like there was no tomorrow.

But those questions make me sober up so damn quick and I feel so bad. I often laugh the questions away and tell them to go home by themself and then I go the other way and feel sad, used and lonely.

I had a thought in late summer to start getting on dating sites since it seems that there could be a lot of fun people there. But after the 30+ suggestions that are all about me being a flavor and a sexy spice in someone's life for fun, I don’t want to get on dating sites.

I’m afraid since I don’t want to get anymore of those comments and suggestions. They make me feel bad, cheap and most of all, they make me feel like an object instead of a human and a woman.

Maybe I’m getting a bit more cynical but maybe not.

It’s not unreasonable that I get treated like a human and not a fun adventure for someone else's sake.
The persons that made those suggestions to me may have the best intentions (or not) but when saying things like that, they show a huge lack of respect towards their partners and most of all towards me.
Since suggestions like that show that they don’t respect or value me.

I’m still not sure if this is because I’m poly but I don’t think that is the case since I’m not that open with it. Perhaps it's just that I run into a lot of selfish idiots.

I am more careful now and that feels sad. But I rather be a bit more careful than ending up getting hurt and sad.
And I know that I am worth so so much more than being a flavor for someone else’s fun.

Everybody is broken - and why that can be good.

(Written in 2019)

I have very often in this blog talked about my trauma and how it affects me. It was not my intention in the beginning but I've come to realize that I really can’t leave it out - since it still affects me.

But it’s not unique to me, because almost everyone has a past that affects them or is a bit broken.

And that could be a great help in life.

Because having a past with a bit of brokeness for me has meant that I know very well what my I want from a relationship

I know what I value and I know what I need in a relationship to feel good

I also know what are the huge red warning flags in a relationship and what I should stay away from.

Sometimes I fall in the traps anyway since I’m not more than a human and I can sometimes be very weak against a nice smile or a dangerous aura. But with my latest mistake this year, I do so hope that I will not repeat it.

Please don’t get me wrong here. I would have given my left hand to be unbroken and not having nightmares and a lack of energy. But my brokenness has given me a great insight in myself, my strengths and my weaknesses.

I know my defence mechanisms and my coping mechanism and that makes it easy to analyze others.

So when I do poly, I can pretty early on find out if a relationship is something I want to hold on to based on how well I connect with the person and I can also pretty fast see their defense mechanisms and issues.
I can see if they are aware of them, if they are working with themself and if they are willing to talk about it.

Why talk about it?

Because I want to be 100% sure that I will not become the fixer, the parent, the friend or the advisor that needs to fix the person.

No way in hell that I will do that again.

That's why I want to see if they are working with themself and if they are persons with a good and healthy relationship to themself.

There have been so many times when I’ve been out with someone and after a while, my whole radar starts to beep with warnings.

About them not being honest with relations.

About them having emotional luggage that they expect everyone else around them to carry.

About them wanting to have conversations on their terms only.

About them expecting me to be strong and fixing everything all the time.

About them expecting all support and giving none.

The list can go on but my point is, since I experienced all of these behaviors in my past, I know them pretty well and I can spot them. And then it’s bye!

I also know that I have to be pretty open with my own trauma and issues when I have relationships.

Not in every relationship of course, some are just for fun and sex but for the ones that I want to last - I need to open up.
Honesty on that level is difficult for me since I’m very afraid to open up and risk being hurt. But when I find people that I want to keep and have around, it’s worth it.

They know my brokenness, I know theirs and with that, we can build relationships that give joy.

The balance in being poly and a workaholic.

 (Written in 2019)

One of the most important things for me in poly has always been time. It was important so many years ago and it’s even more important now.

When I say time, I mean time to spend with the people I love, alone time for self care and rest and time for my family.

It should be so easy.

But then we add the fun fact that I’m a workaholic and suddenly it gets really complicated.

I’ve been a workaholic since… way to many years back. It started as a coping mechanism for me, since working was the only way to keep me alive after me and my ex broke up.

My therapist then said that it was a miracle that I was 1) alive 2) able to stand up and 3) work on 100%.

But he understood why I never wanted to take a break from work, perhaps long before I did.

I don’t know if that was a good thing for me, still not sure. But it took me through the years of the worst trauma and it prevented me from giving up. 

My biggest fear during all of these years since my ex has always been that my trauma would overcome me and that I would not be able to work. 

I fought it so hard and long, with healing and climbing up. 

I used meditation, therapy and during the first years - antidepressant and sleeping pills to cope with my nightmares and the pain that never seemed to end.

This in combination with my work actually helped. 

Somewhere along the way, I realized that I found peace and a feeling of self worth in my work.

I loved working as a journalist and at my dad's job. It helped me grow and find stability and find what I was good at (and not).

I loved to work with gaming culture, with organizing events for feminism and against racism, I loved helping others grow in their hobby.

When I finally was free from my depression, my work led me to so many great places and I realized that I wanted more. I wanted to change the world and go my own way.  I wanted to follow my dreams and that has been a journey of both pain and loneliness but never regrets.

In short: My work is very important to me today, much more than it was 10 years ago.

I put a lot of time into it these days. I have a tendency to work for very long hours and sometimes I need to do that since my memory is pretty damaged by trauma. Things take a bit longer but all of my work sparks so much joy.

So with that, my time looks like this:

• My work takes 100% of my workdays.

• I need self care and rest for at least two days a week. This can be time by myself or time together with someone that I’m really comfortable around.

• I want to give my closest friends and my family time, my evenings easily get spent having a fika, dinner or just chill time with them.

And on top of this, I want to spend time with my poly relations. But oh, how time is so fucking scarce!

I handle this with planning, planning and more planning. Often months in advance.

I try to make it very clear to the people that I start to see that my work and my friends and family comes first, both because it’ s true and because I don’t want people to expect that I can give them weeks and days of my time.

And even with the best intentions, sometimes I suck so hard at this. 

I tend to not prioritize relations that I don’t feel as strongly for and sometimes it can go weeks without me staying in touch.

These relations are often ended after a while since I realized that I have them more for a need and fun times than an actual will to build something lasting with them.

But the relations that I feel strongly for, with emotions and sex, those I want to give time and lots of it. All I have.

Which is not that much since it’s me and my hopeless life.

But for me, giving of my time is perhaps the most important gift I can give. Since it says to people that I want to have them in my life and that I’m trying.

So for me, it is a question of planning, communication, calendars and also an insight in myself on how I need to prioritize. 

Superboring sometimes.

Do I wish that I could be more spontaneous?

Do I wish that I could have more time?

God yes.

But when I find persons that give me joy, that I want to connect with and when the emotions are standing there, then I want to give them time. 

And then I give myself room for being spontaneous and to be able to give time into that relationship.

Since that is the easiest way for me to say how much they mean.