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non-monogamy

RelationshipThat Hard, Bizarre Thing Series

That Hard, Bizarre Thing #33 of 45: “Dear Both of You”

by Angela

(NOTE: Inspired by a journal about past events, does NOT reflect the present.)

To Girlfriend


I keep trying to give you things I do not have to give. I keep overestimating my generosity, I keep telling you things are fine that are not fine at all, I keep saying I want you to be happy in Girl’s company when all I want is for you to say my company is enough and never see Girl again. I keep thinking I can hold one too many cheeses like Gus Gus in Cinderella and I wind up with all of my cheese rolling across the floor and hungry all night. I keep trying to be what I was taught a proper woman is supposed to be, long-suffering, endlessly tolerant, sacrificial, a martyr, trod upon, selfless. 

It is all just shit.

I am lying to you, lying to Girl, lying to myself because I am so sure I need to be more than I am. I am tired of this.

Dear Both of You,

I need space from your “friendship.”

You can still hang out, but I don’t want to be there, because being there feels like someone is shoving nails between my ribs.

I do not want to spend any more hours witnessing your suppressed affections pour from your cells.

I do not want to pretend to be normal while being electrocuted by the crackling voltage of your longing and desire.

I do not want to listen to you tell me you are just friends, when what my ears hear does not sound like friendship, when what my eyeballs see does not look like friendship, when my body feels you are Not. Just. Friends.

And if you tell me I am being “dramatic about your friendship” one more time, I may want to punch you both. And I will be capable of punching Girlfriend in this case, because she’ll be caught in the haze that follows you two wherever you go. I guess. I probably would still miss. Whatever.

So you can keep your all-day texts, keep your hours of Facetime, keep your car hangouts and find out where this so-called friendship takes you. Maybe it’ll develop faster with me not around. Maybe you’ll end up going steady. You know, as friends.

Sincerely, Angela

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Eating/Weight IssuesRelationshipThat Hard, Bizarre Thing Series

That Hard, Bizarre Thing #32 of 45  :”Insomniac Skeleton”

by Angela

(NOTE: Written about an experience in the past, does NOT reflect the present.)

It felt like I was losing the love of my life, and that was enough to press the blinking “fight or flight” button calling for all available trauma responses to engage.

Every night I laid in bed, doing slow 4-7-8 breathing, counting backwards from 200, imagining every calm and serene thing possible. Floating in the ocean on a magical mattress, walking in quiet woods, healing light flowing through my body, an angel stroking my hair as I laid across her lap on a cloud made of cotton. And every night the hours would pass as my heartbeat refused to stop pounding on its primal drum “DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER!”

When I eventually did fall asleep I would always wake up in prayer, pleading for the clock hands to have moved more than one hour, imploring the sun to have risen. Before opening my eyes I’d whisper “Please, please, please tell me I was asleep for enough hours to keep living. Tell me I have been unconscious enough to be conscious. Let daytime have arrived.” And every time a dark-outside disappointment, my body spurning rest lest the enemy overtake my bunker or something like that. This went on for two months. I have no idea how people do it for any longer, insomnia must super suck and I get why sleeping pills exist.

However, I was not a complete stranger to sleeplessness. I have often stayed up all night, dealing with a plastered ex, too furious and terrified of what this meant for my life to sleep. I’ve stayed up all night in the bed of a drug-dealing pick-up artist. I’ve stayed up all night worried for the children. I once even stayed up all night just nervous about going to a new Muay Thai class. Not being able to sleep was unpleasant, and surprising in its duration, but not an absolute shock. 

What did surprise me was that I stopped eating. I have never stopped eating on accident. I’m not sure I have ever stopped eating, period. I LOVE eating. If anything, I am perpetually trying to eat less, aggravated by my inability to eat like a little birdie, or eat teeny portions like my mom. When I was younger, I was so annoyed I did not seem to have the discipline to maintain a proper eating disorder. I know, that is a terrible thing to say. But it is true. So it was new when my body was SO certain a mammoth or sabertooth tiger was coming straight for me, at any moment, that it wanted to be empty all of the time. For running, I guess.

I used to not understand what it meant to lose one’s appetite. I always thought “Well, just eat even though you don’t want to. Put the food in, chew, swallow, easy. You don’t have to enjoy it.” I always thought there were far worse things in this world than not having an appetite. After all, there are drugs invented purely to take appetites away. Ignorant me always thought “What’s going to happen to you? Going to have a thigh gap? Going to look like a model? Going to be able to wear whatever you want? Poor thing.” I did not get it, because I have always had the great privilege of constantly wanting to eat. 

But now I know how the body can rebel, how it can reject even a bite of toast, how it can clench tight and scream “NO NO NO NO NO!” to a morsel of oatmeal. It became a feat to get anything down. It was a victory to eat half an apple, it was a triumph to drink a chocolate protein by breaking it into small servings throughout the day. It was profound to experience how hard it is to get food into a body that does not want it.

There have been many times in my life when I was trying to be thin enough to have value. The last notable times were in 2014 and 2017, trying to skinny my way into the hearts of incredibly unavailable men. But even though I ate only one meal a day, even though I did Insanity and exercised for hours, even though our burlesque costume maker constantly made alterations because I was smaller every time I saw her, even though backstage my friend said “Oh my god, I can see ALL of your ribs!” I was never small enough. I could never get under 110, which is all I wanted, to be under 110. To be a size zero. To be the size of nothing.

So it was shocking when I began to melt and continue to melt. When I did not fit a single thing in my closet, when my shirts caught on the pointed blades of my shoulders, when I had to tie string around the crumpled waist of my leggings, when I was even too small for the remnants of the itty bitty clothes I wore in 2014. When I stepped on the scale and it said 103. 103?!! That was a number I did not think was possible. And it is not, unless I stop eating. A friend urged me to go to the doctor. A friend I have always envied for being thin.

And so I rattled around in my life, an insomniac skeleton, wondering if I would ever be okay again. Wondering how long I could not sleep and eat before something terrible happened. Wondering if I might be blown away by a tropical storm. The body whispers, then speaks, then screams. And it will scream until we listen. 

(NOTE: I will likely visit this in another post, but while the loss of weight was disturbing, it was a whole different mind-fuck when I regained it. It was so twisty for me my therapist suggested I stop using a scale, possibly forever.)

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RelationshipThat Hard, Bizarre Thing Series

That Hard, Bizarre Thing #31 of 45: “I Can Live Without You”

by Angela

(NOTE: Inspired by a journal about past events, does NOT reflect the present.)

I have been counting down the days till this anniversary since our last one, we both have been. Ten more months, 9 more months, 5 more months, 8 weeks, 7 weeks, 6 weeks, then Girl showed up and what was the point of all that counting?

I am so over it.
It is time to return to me.
Get my life together, pour my love into the children, take care of the home.
Build my projects, get my creations off the ground.
Take care of my body.

You can keep orbiting her like she is the only planet in the whole galaxy and you are her moon, you can keep texting her, visiting with her, talking about her, but I am done. I am done being caught in your gravity. I need to live.

It is all changed now, our relationship. It is changed, so much has been lost, and I do not know what to make of it. I do not know what to make of our plans for the future when you are so easily swayed. I do not know what to do when you are my biggest source of pain. I do not know what to do when you say you might just be incapable of monogamy and that is the end of it. 

But it does not matter, because I have me.

I have me, the children have me, and if that is all we have then so be it. If you are half checked out, then so be it. I have my period one week early, I am so sick, I am afraid of running out of money, I am afraid of being alone. But I do not need to be afraid. The Universe has my back and I now know what I have not known before.

I can live without you.

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RelationshipThat Hard, Bizarre Thing Series

That Hard, Bizarre Thing #30 of 45: What Hurts the Most

by Angela

(NOTE: Inspired by a journal about past events, does NOT reflect the present.)

To Girlfriend,

What hurts the most.

It may be the realization I was wrong. I thought I was the special core of your world, an unshakeable center held and cherished. That storms could come, waves could rise and crash, winter could fall bitterly cold, fires could tear across the land, but in it all I would be unharmed. Protected. Sheltered. You would never let me burn to the ground. You would never tolerate my pain. Woe to anyone who tried to hurt me, they would have to deal with you.

So it shook me. It shook me when you found a new center and I was pushed out of orbit, left to find my own way. It shook me when I was standing before you, in pain, in heartbreak, in desperation, losing myself, heart bloody in my hands, and your eyes could not see me. You would not protect me, you protected her first. And now I feel you are willing to demolish me for Girl. To annihilate me for Girl. To sacrifice our entire life for Girl. I am not the princess I thought I was. And you are not the protector I thought you were. 

What is crazy is you say you still love me, that you have not stopped loving me. You say you still want me in your life, you still want our life, but your words mean so little when I am wholly eclipsed by the blazing, intoxicating glory of what is new, of her. I find myself standing in shadow, alone, drifting through the darkness and freezing void of space, when I was so certain I was your sun. This does not feel like love.

You are capable of hurting me. You are capable of tossing me aside. You are capable of taking someone else and making them everything. You are capable of being so blind I could unravel right in front of you and you will do nothing. You are capable of watching me die to save Girl instead. I do not know if these things are true, but they FEEL true. And it sucks. 

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PoemRelationshipThat Hard, Bizarre Thing Series

That Hard, Bizarre Thing #29 of 45: “Ocean”

by Angela

“Ocean”

I did not expect starseed recognition,
for the constellations in her eyes
to chart your way home.

I did not expect her artist fingers
to paint coincidence as serendipity,
or sculpt moments into such miracles

it seemed God must be at the wheel
steering me from my place
as the center of your world.

I did not expect you to find
the skeleton key to your soul
dangling from her collarbone.

To find your native language
dancing on her tongue,
your future in her daydreams,

and your wishes in every tooth
placed under her pillow.
Aren’t you just SO aligned?

I did not expect her to be your muse, 
the Beatrice to your Dante
in the tome I thought was ours.

I did not expect the deluge of texts.
For her words to tuck you in at night
and be your sunrise every morning,

no bank robber has ever held
a hostage like her three dots blinking
on your screen.

I did not expect to watch a movie
of our love story beginnings,
but find her standing in my place

with a script meant for my lips.
There is something so humbling
about losing the lead in your own show.

I did not expect the coldness in your 
voice to fill my lungs with ice,
turning my breath to crystal daggers,

freezing discordance in my throat.
I did not expect for you to pull 
my anchor from your sands,

to let me capsize as I felt
your tidal waves of emotion
roll through me to her shores.

I did not expect to become yesterday’s paper
or last night’s moon
invisible in the light of a new day.

I did not expect so violently
wanting to escape. How I’d
scream at the sky or want to

bury myself in the ground,
nails caked with dirt from
scratching your name out of my existence.

I did not expect for my protector
to become my greatest danger.
No warning signs were posted

to signal the expiration date
of every promise you ever made.
I did not expect to sit beside you

in solitary confinement,
your absent attention thicker
than any concrete wall.

I did not expect to be lost
with no compass or flint,
with no starlight or path

in a wilderness I’ve never tasted
in a country I’ve never known.
I did not expect you’d be so willing

all Cupid needed was a spitball
to shoot you up so high
you could not help but fall in love.

I did not expect I’d end up spending 
every minute of the day 
trying to decide:

Do I go or do I stay?
Do I hate or do I love?
Do I lock or do I open?

Do I burn or do I rise?
Do I drown 
Or do I become the ocean?

I become the ocean.
I become the ocean.

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RelationshipThat Hard, Bizarre Thing Series

That Hard, Bizarre Thing #28 of 45: “How Can I Still Like Her?”

by Angela

(NOTE: Inspired by a journal about past events, does NOT reflect the present.)

And today, in the pouring rain, Girl asked for help, strands of wet hair criss-crossed on her face. So I reached for them, my fingertips brushing against her cheek, and I thought “I still like her. Even after the pain of it all, I still like her. What is this life?” 

What is this world where I want what I cannot have?
Where who I want wants the same person?
Where my love is held by this girl, and this girl is held by my love. and I am on the sidelines
watching,
just watching,
waiting for nothing. 
Letting it hurt,
letting pain roll in
like the tide.

(NOTE: I believe this was the last time I thought I was attracted to Girl, you know, LIKE liked her. And I don’t know if I ever actually liked her, I may have just been attached to her, and my mind translated that as attraction because it was the closest category that made sense. I think I also really WANTED to like her.

Because if I was not attracted to her, our situation turned from the somewhat interesting idea of Girlfriend and I finding the same person alluring, OOooOOoo so fun and different, into the super lame situation of Girlfriend and Girl being infatuated with each and… the end. Even though it hurt, “My partner likes my crush, and my crush likes my partner,” was easier to deal with than “My partner and some chick seem to be falling in love.”

Also, if I had no romantic feelings for Girl, they had no reason to attempt to include me. The laughable throuple-esque notion would be dead and gone, and I would have just had a girlfriend who had a new girlfriend she seemed to like better than me. I preferred letting them, and myself, think I wanted the throuple-y friendship. Not that it changed anything. Or maybe I just liked that it made me more victim-y, therefore making Girlfriend feel guiltier, because she was not only abandoning me, but also hanging out with someone I liked. Double guilt.

Again, we were never actually a throuple. They were never officially a couple. Just in case you forgot.)

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RelationshipThat Hard, Bizarre Thing Series

That Hard, Bizarre Thing #27: “Hypocrite Delight”

by Angela

(NOTE: Written about an experience in the past, does NOT reflect the present.)

When I was under the impression Girl was trying to get rid of me and have Girlfriend to herself, I was livid. How dare she. HOW DARE SHE?!! When I had been so supportive? So kind? I felt like Girl was the snakiest snake of all. 

And this would perhaps be a case of good ol’ Matthew 7:3: “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?” (NLT) I remember this verse not because of the many Bible studies I attended, but because I once had a main role in Godspell. 

Anyway.

Who was I to sit on the high horse of “How dare you try to steal my partner?” when I have been with two married men, one engaged man, two men with girlfriends, and… My gosh. Have I only dated two men who were actually available? And both of them while I was NOT available? That is a shady-as-shit track record. 

When I was with men, I have a history of having ZERO moral compass, and the accompanying ZERO self-respect. I wanted what I wanted, and I did not care who was in my way. That can sound like I was a powerful bad bitch ruthlessly ripping apart homes and stomping on hearts with my six-inch stilettos, but I was not. 

I was super weak. Super fragile. I had no idea who I was, no idea I was codependent AND anxious-avoidant, and I would not figure it out for a long time. My value came from being wanted, and I craved men who would hurt. Tell me, what is one of the greatest signs of a man that will hurt? A man who will cheat on his partner to be with me, or a man who does not care that I am already taken. Men with gaping wounds to match my own. I found them intoxicating, they were everything, my compulsion, my obsession, I was a sucker for the game to make them want me, to make them mine, to taste the momentary victory before rolling into the unwinnable game of trying to get them to treat me well. Like I even knew what it meant to be treated well. 

For many, I felt like I was saving them. Saving them from abusive wives, from cheating wives, from controlling girlfriends, from the super boring woman their father wanted them to marry, from the women who kept breaking their heart. It felt almost noble, and it was so addictive, to feel like the creator of freedom, to feel like the key to their shackles. To feel them drink me in, like fresh water amidst the sands of the Sahara, to feel like I brought them back to vitality, back to love. I was addicted to being a lifeline. Codependent to the core. And I imagine Girl may have felt this way? Like she was an oasis infusing Girlfriend with new life. Which would make sense, because I think Girlfriend said that to her, like, two hundred times in twenty different ways.

And when I cheated, I rationalized it with reasons. He is abusive. He is controlling. He is a liar. He is an alcoholic. He is in love with my friend. He won’t have sex with me. He is cruel. He makes me feel worthless. He cheated first. And you’d think I’d have just left them instead of cheating, which is veeeeeery stressful, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I did not have the capacity to make that choice. And I was so accustomed to stress and chaos and feeling like a terrible, shitty, weak, pathetic human being that I hung out there a lot. It was my zone, my happy unhappy place. 


There will be other posts about the many questionable things I’ve done later. The point I am making is I am aware of the absurdity of my indignation with what I thought I saw in Girl when I have actually done it all. Repeatedly. And hurt a LOT of people. I know what it is to desire someone’s attention so strongly I don’t care about anything else. I know what it is to be selfish, inconsiderate, and ruthless. I know what it is to WANT at all costs. I’ve been there. I get it.

And this sentiment extends to Girlfriend, too. I tried so hard to be cool because I GET IT.

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RelationshipThat Hard, Bizarre Thing Series

That Hard, Bizarre Thing #25d: “5 Reasons Why #4 & #5 – We Really Wanted a Friend & It Was Meant to be”

by Angela

(NOTE: Written about an experience in the past, does NOT reflect the present.)

Reason #4: We Really Wanted a Friend

During this time we had few friends, almost none, and didn’t hang out with anyone. So it was like a dream come true, to have a third person, to have a new friend who we could run around with and talk to and laugh with. There is nothing really deep in this reason, I mean, we continue to want friends. Feel free to submit your resume.

Reason #5: It was meant to be. 

This experience was supposed to happen exactly when it happened and exactly how it happened. We both knew this through the whole thing, even when it was hard. We were following a path, we listened to the cards, we listened to signs, we listened to our own intuition, and while it was winding and confusing and kind of horrible, it all led us to where we needed to be.

We were meant to be attracted to Girl, obsessed with Girl, broken with Girl, put through the wringer with Girl. We uncovered so many gaping holes within ourselves and within our relationship that needed healing, and feeling absolutely fucked (not in a good way), absolutely decimated, absolutely stupid, absolutely worthless, absolutely broken hearted, absolutely empty, it was the medicine. Like I’ve said, we needed everything we were to be burned to the ground so we could rebuild, heal, and become new. If given the choice to go back, I would do everything exactly the same. 

In Conclusion

Those are five of the reasons we had such a hard time letting Girl go. As you read and perhaps become increasingly confused as to why Girl continued to be in our lives, or why I ever wanted to see her again, ever, just come back to this post and go “Oh yeah. That’s why.” 

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RelationshipThat Hard, Bizarre Thing Series

That Hard, Bizarre Thing #25c: “5 Reasons Why #3 – We Wanted to be Heroes”

by Angela

(NOTE: Written about an experience in the past, does NOT reflect the present.)

Reason #3: We Wanted to be Heroes

Girlfriend and I both share, or shared, a deep desire to save people. To save them from their diets, from their terrible relationships, from their destructiveness, from their family, etc. I theorize this comes from a long-standing inability to save ourselves, so we projected savior mentalities out into the world. Girlfriend’s hero complex manifested in its own ways, mine came mostly in the form of codependency, trying to save this man and that man from their alcoholic-ness, from their father or mother hunger, from their traumatic childhood, etc. (As far as we know, this desire is now gone. We do not think we have the ability to save anyone, nor do we try.)

So when Girl shared sad secrets that made it seem like she really needed to be saved, ohhhhhhhhh we knew it was just the job for us. We strapped on our capes, laced our ninja boots, and took it upon ourselves to “save” her from everything we perceived was awry. To save her from unhappiness, from controlling men, from limiting beliefs, from unkind family, from all of the many people incapable of recognizing the gem she was, people who did not deserve her in their lives.

Ridiculous and grandiose notions. We don’t even know if any of the things we thought we were saving her from were real. 

But it was a HUGE part of it. So when we felt like she was being not-nice, when her stories seemed to not add up, when she’d say one thing and do the opposite, when her behavior increasingly suggested she wanted Girlfriend to herself, instead of creating boundaries we extended grace. We were so certain what she needed was love, we’d write off any peculiar behavior as stemming from her trauma, her hurts, “This poor thing, she just does not know better. She just needs more caring. She just needs to feel safe and know that we are here for her, no matter what.” We treated her like a feral cat who would stop scratching our arms up if we just loved it properly.

Despite being mostly cast aside, I made it a personal mission to give Girl the mothers love I believed she always deserved but did not receive. I forgave her endlessly. I’d apologize when I did nothing wrong. I’d be kind and compassionate and tell her she was amazing, tell her she was extraordinary, tell her to keep being her, that she was perfect. Always. I thought I could words-of-affirmation her into healing, love her into being a different person. I thought if I showed her that even if she stabbed me in the back, or even straight in the front, I would still love her, that I could break down her walls and help set her free.  I was… codependent as fuck And probably some other things. And so arrogant in it. And so lost in my own savior fantasy, my own concept of myself as some holy angel meant to heal her. So needy for the value that would come from being a knight in shining armor. It is so strange to think about now.

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RelationshipThat Hard, Bizarre Thing Series

That Hard, Bizarre Thing #25b: “5 Reasons Why #2 – Insatiable Craving for External Validation”

by Angela

(NOTE: Written about an experience in the past, does NOT reflect the present.)

Reason #2: Insatiable Craving for External Validation

This all happened during a time we were starved for external validation. Attention. Compliments. Being thought of as cool. Showing off our skills. Being seen as having value, being seen as “above” on the ladder of hierarchy.

And Girl felt like a cat, at first. Guarded, mysterious, finicky, skittish. So of course, we were like “YOU! YOU ARE THE ONE!” because we are programmed to want what we cannot have. And then, when she finally came around, wow. What an explosion of love, though mostly for Girlfriend, but some of it leaked toward me in the first week or two. Our home is the first place that ever felt like home? Our love is the only unconditional love she’s ever tasted? Holy crap, we were hooked. We were also given magical, exclusive access. She’d show up almost daily, tell us stories that seemed like secrets only we had the privilege of knowing. The cat chose us, and we were so special. External validation flowing strong.

And for Girlfriend? Oh my gosh. The way Girl made her feel, at first? Girlfriend sat on a pedestal of pedestals, she was wisdom incarnate, she was a goddess and god, she was the physical manifestation of what had only been a fantasy, a veritable dream woman painting come to life, the motherfucking sun. And for Girlfriend, who moved from kingdoms where she was adored, respected, and held in great esteem, to our home with children who barely noticed she had any skills at all? Girl was the water to quench Girlfriend’s long-held thirst.

I mean, at least Girlfriend was love blitzed and had good reason to get attached. I was just next to the explosion, trying so hard to find scraps and crumbs for myself. Wanting Girl around just in hopes that she might give me something, might SEE me for even a second, might acknowledge that I was someone of merit, too. Which is why I did not want to lose her, because I’d lose access to any possible morsels of validation that I really really really wanted from the cat. I mean, Girl. Crazy. Pretty much an all-consuming desperation for her to tell me that I had value like Girlfriend. And an equal desperation for Girlfriend to tell me I had value like Girl. 

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