Well, That was Quick

So, it's turned for the worse. Surprise, sadly enough.
M and I are still getting along wonderfully, after a rocky start, but it seems that J's bedroom passions surpass my own too much to be reconciled.
Which sucks, truth told.

I've mentioned a divide, albeit not very clearly, between her and I, and I've been meaning to talk more about it, except that I've only had hints and ideas and most of those were fueled  by my own intuition (I would say suspicious nature, but it turned out they were right, so it was intuition.), and I've been trying to pretend it wasn't what it was, but simply enough-- she and I weren't meant to be.

Which is fine, I suppose, sometimes relationships turn out that way. The biggest problem I have with this is that I've gotten fairly attached to L, and M and I again have basically no issues. Took us a while to quit being all guarded, but now we're comfortable, and the more comfortable we got, the less comfortable J was with us.
She claims that it's just us having sex without her that bothers her, but I've very deliberately been holding back my displays of affection in front of her, for fear of bothering her. (The sick sad part of me wants to see if she'll be mad at that, too...)
My mother said that a lot of it might have something to do with not feeling like she's number one in his life. And I can completely see that, but he's a father (as he claims, above all else), and I know for certain that if I ever had to choose between a man and my child, I know my child would come first-- and I don't doubt at all that he's the same way; so her feeling this way is not my fault.

I've been giving them space for about a week, and then I finally asked J what I could do to make things less.... pear-shaped about us, and she finally expressed a very key point, I think, that is driving the wedge between us.

I'm not a very feminine person. And I say person, because to say non-feminine woman either makes you think butch, or a woman that only has three kinds of shampoo and ten pairs of shoes instead of twenty of each. If those two aren't the same thing.
I'm basically a stereotypical man with a vagina. If I can't smell me, I don't stink. I barely wash my hair, I keep it short so I don't have to, I do good to get dressed at all, if I can get away with it, my definition of "clean" is "doesn't stink" and I've upped the ante to "can't see any awful marks on it".
It makes perfect sense to me that, if she wants to date a woman, she wants to date a fairly femme woman. Or at least one that shaves and showers more than twice a week. I hate shaving, by the way. I refuse to, unless I'm guaranteed some action in the bedroom, and even then I whine about it. And I mean armpits, shaving, not just bikini area shaving.

But ultimately, I'm a very.... Let's say 'confusing' person in bed.
She doesn't like that. Neither do I, honestly, it makes life very bleeding difficult, because every prospect requires a stupid powerpoint presentation of how I work and why I work that way, and then I have to answer stupid questions, because trying to explain that I honestly land under what is called the "umbrella of asexuality" is horrible.

So I don't give her the reactions she wants when we're "playing". Not that she'd know, she's only tried once and gave up since then (cough, depression cough), but because she's only tried once, I've pretty much determined that I'm not sure she was ever aiming to play with me at all. I don't even remember this try, I assume she was still pregnant at the time, and I might well have been drunk or that tired or something.

I'm disappointed, though. I can't figure out how to fix her and I, and I honestly don't think she wants to fix us, and M does, but he has no dogs in that hunt, so to speak, and even if he did, J would shoot them all for trying to get into the hunt.
More and more, I've gotten the impression that she wants me the hell away from their relationship. Except that she's the one objecting to my moving out of the place we currently share.

This is ultimately financially reasoned. And childcare, also finances, but simplicity.
This amuses the hell out of me, at the same time as annoying me.
Because I, now that I've faced that this isn't working and almost definitely isn't going to, now want to run away screaming and crying and throwing things.
I cannot express my disappointment, sadness, or heartbreak. I don't expect to be able to.

I'll miss L the most.
When I start on this train of thought, though, of leaving, I start humming to distract myself, but I always wind up humming the lullabye I've been using for him, and that just makes it worse.

It's in French, from Wolf's Rain. I can't find a literal translation for it anymore, or maybe the sentence structure in French is that backwards or something, but I rather like it. "No matter how difficult, I'll dance the path with the wolves"

So. I guess that's it. Six months.
I'm not going to delete this blog, though I want to, because I'm hoping that someone else will read it and learn. I should have included more of the negative, but, eh. Such is life.

This is probably going to sound horrible.

 Hi.
I shouldn't be writing this late, and certainly not while I feel like I do, but I really want to get it off my chest.

J has been either subconsciously or consciously competing with me.
You can nearly hear her tallying up how M treats me versus her. What he tells her when he tells her, when we've had what kind of sex, whether he's cuddling me or whatever. Just. She does it. I know she's doing it, and it's making me upset and angry and hurt because even when he does tell her things before he tells me, it's usually just a matter of presence or how well he's able to articulate at the moment or who's there when he thinks it-- and that's when she's listening, anyway. There are times she gets mad that she's been left out of the loop when in fact she just wasn't paying attention when the loop was totally right there.

She got mad the week before last because M was having trouble with Mj, and when she called he told her he didn't want to talk about it, and when I asked via text rather than calling, he simply said Mj's name.
Both of these can be attributed to time factors, seeing as the trouble was his throwing a fit about not wanting to go and not getting in the car like a normal three-year-old, and I imagine being on the phone didn't help. That five minutes would have made the difference between the door and the car and actually being strapped in.

Today she quizzed me, I mean third freaking degree (or fourth or whatever number it is) about what he told me about some super complicated bullshit that's come up with his ex, just in case she'd been left out of some communication.

And got mad later today because she forgot something he'd said when she was in the goddamn room and she thought she'd been left out.

I do not know what she wants, but I am not competing. I have never been competing, and if it becomes a competition that is outside her head, I quit and I'm running away, because their relationship is first and foremost in my mind, and I know for damn sure that he treats us equally. If nothing else, he married her and running away with me would be a horrible idea because I kind of need them both to ground me because splitting my attentions has probably been the best thing for me.

 There is not only no competition, but most of the time, no one's deliberately leaving out anything, no one's deliberately not saying, no one is intentionally not telling anyone anything. If something gets unspoken, there are two people that know what's up and can correct this matter, if someone feels like asking.

But instead, she wants to make it about her and decide that M's deliberately not telling her and prefers to tell me instead. Why? I don't fucking know.
She thought he was deliberately not having sex with her, too. And deliberately not sitting on the couch with her.

I don't know how much of this I can attribute to her postpartum, but it's making me want to strangle her.

TV show J's been watching lately, a couple hadn't been having sex for a year and a half, and she said she didn't know what she'd do if they went a year and a half. I (rather bitterly) said that she'd blame me.
She asked me why I said this. I don't think she's noticed the accusatory manner. So I don't know what to do. Especially since I've been calling her on a lot of her bullshit lately, because she's got these habits she inherited straight from her mother like yelling at you for asking a question she thinks the answer's obvious (like whether her cell is connected to the wi-fi), or getting mad at us for asking a question at all.

There. Said it. No problems solved, but I figured it fell right into the "troubles of the relationship", probably more than anything else has. Part of why I decided to do this blog was specifically that, to talk about the troubles of the relationship, because I know anyone else in our situation might appreciate someone else's slice-of-life on the matter, know they're not alone. 'cos you're not. Jealousy is totally a thing, and an ungrounded one, and my anger in response to it is bitter and unfair.

I got a headache while we were shopping, yesterday, and I requested that we make the window-shopping in the baby section quick, because I was wishing I didn't have my left eye in, 'cos then the pressure would have somewhere to go, and she got mad at that, too. Stomped around and left us behind to go grab something real quick without saying a word.
And said that if we didn't want to go shopping, we should have said. Like I knew ahead of time I was going to want to take my eye out or something. Or wouldn't have said. 'cos I'll say. Oh boy, will I say. I did say. And she got mad.

I don't know what to do. She's making communication more and more unpleasant, and then getting mad at us for not communicating, and then refusing to talk to us because she thinks we're refusing to talk to her. I don't know what to do. I'm getting frustrated, now.

I'm also getting very deep impressions that she doesn't want me in the relationship. Or here at all. She can't really put me out, but I'm wondering if the desire to break up with me isn't just something that's part of the postpartum.
It's making me want out. M doesn't want me gone, but of course he doesn't. He's not competing with me in his head.

I could kill her for that. That's so unfair. That's so unfair, to make everything a fight that I don't want to participate in, that I don't even think she knows she's fighting, and she wins by default, every time, because if it EVER came to that, I forfeit and run away. Simple as that.

Thanks for listening.

Jealousy Mistaken and Post Partum Depression

So, a few ages back, I said that J was jealous of me, right?
Well, it turned out that she was misunderstanding. She was, indeed, jealous, but not why we originally thought. We thought it was some deep-seated territorialism over the father of her child, or perhaps some weird female drive from before she really considered the poly. We were wrong, of course.
Mostly, she just wants M's attention, and doesn't like when I get it.

Not that he's not paying attention to her, 'cos he is (although she and I have both agreed that he could do it more and better, and told him such), nor that I'm stealing his attention from her (I'm not, she is not home when I'm recieving most of his attentions, thus the reasons I'm recieving most of his attentions.), it's just that their work schedules conflict and they almost never see each other, and he's got plans for when he's not working already in place so that she feels like she can't butt in edge-ways.

Now, he and I had to have a very long, long conversation about how to handle it.
Because this has been going on since he started his current job, and she's gotten less and less okay, and has felt more and more like she was being whiny and naggy and bitchy when she was asking him not to go (which, in fairness, she started to act, so she was justified in feeling that way, but her causality was off), and he felt more and more like she was being one of those impossible-to-please naggy whiny bitches, and I was kind of watching, because what happens on weekends is really not a lot of my know anyway (I'm working then), but I do get to see the wrath during the week.

Ultimately, the only night they can possibly have together, kid-free, is Saturday. Maybe Friday if they start late, but not too late, 'cos kids will still be up in the mornings.

Childcare, by the way, is a bitch, when you're trying to find for three boys and one's and infant and the family's kind of.... mrrph about one of them for reasons that shall not be discussed right now but make me grind my teeth in irritation.

Anyway. Saturday. And M has a permanent plan for Saturday.
J has no plans for Saturdays, but she wishes he didn't have a permanent plan for Saturday, because she wants him home spending it with her.
I'm always home Saturdays, so they can bring the boys home and as long as they get back before I leave for work, all should be well. (Our house is never empty, and I don't sleep well on work nights) So they can make plans.
But he completely misinterprets what she wants out of this, because the only hints he's been getting are when she gets mopey while he's on his way out the door.

A part of this miscommunication is because of her post partum. That shit is a nightmare. I know how it is, too. When I was neck-deep in my depression, I would get sad when people would leave the room. To go to the bathroom. Even if I wasn't talking to them.
Another part of this miscommunication is the fact that it is emotionally charged. And a third reason is due to his irritation at her and the topic at hand and the situation itself, and those all lead to subconscious sabotage of your reading of the situation, and he wouldn't have any room to try and see it from her point of view.

At one point, maybe a month ago, he told her that if she wanted to come up with anything to do, to let him know by Wednesday so that he could cancel or confirm his normal plans.
This is, of course, fucking annoying on his part. He gives her two days to come up with a reason to get herself, but not him, out of the house.
It was at this point that I suggested (lightly) that maybe she wanted to spend the time with him? And that's part of why she's upset?
The idea hadn't occurred to him, I don't think.
I was trying my best to be all cuddles and kisses and stuff, but I think it was his attention more than anything else she was craving, and I could never have substituted that.

It took me a while to work him around to the idea that it was him she wanted.

Took longer to get him to consider that maybe he was messing up, a little, just accidentally, in that situation. And then I had to translate that he had basically told her that she had two days to come up with date plans or else. And that his handling of the situation was nearly as bad as hers.
While she'd wait 'til he was nearly out the door to tell him she wished he wouldn't leave, he would only get angry and keep doing it, telling her why he was always going to.
I finally, last week, suggested, why not set aside every other weekend? Or just one weekend out of the month?
He tried to get out of it, using work as an excuse, but I pointed out that when that doesn't happen, it'll be okay, and if it does, we can work around it.
I think I probably also threatened his life, 'cos it's starting to annoy me, having to be the middle man because they both get hyper defensive/offensive and fight rather than solve anything. This is both of their faults, and I spend a lot of their fights refereeing.

So, lately, she's still unhappy about it, because of the scheduling thing, but now she's overjoyed 'cos we might get to fix that.
But she and I are on hiatus, because she's accidentally friendzoned me, I think (I honestly have no idea.), but if nothing else, she has not been well, she has not been herself, and I know and respect depression enough to know that added pressure basically just makes you wanna curl up into a ball and not do anything ever again for fear of messing it up beyond repair.

I think that's probably the worst part about it right now.
See, we founded our relationship on the principle of open communication. You must speak to one another. Even, and especially, if you don't want to talk about it. You must. It's important. Vital.
She hasn't spoken much to either of us.
Part of this is because she feels like when we talk, it's about work or money, and it stresses her out, and she doesn't handle stress well. Part of this is also because she wants to talk to M and not me as much because of the aforementioned attention thing (and that big-strong-man part of the equation that I will never make up), and part of this is because she's got that wheedling little voice in her head that tells her that there's no reason to bother talking about anything ever because it doesn't matter, and even if it does matter, it doesn't matter that it matters, and even if it did matter that it mattered, nothing good will come of any of it anyway.
So she mumbles, we say what, she mumbles, we say what, she yells nothing, nevermind, we never listen.

I've asked her if she's considered suicide. I know I do when I'm in the worst of my pits of angst (I suffer clinical, take meds for it, lovely little pills. Named it to separate it from me, too.), and I would like to take care of my woman as best as I can, and she said no, and sometimes I wonder.

She has been doing remarkably better. She still has her days, and her moments, but lately, either she's gotten better at faking it (Hope not, fear so), or it's coming less often. I'm wondering if this is because M is on vacation from work.

She did get to take care of us while we had "the plague". (I think it was just the flu, but I don't think I've ever been that sick in my life. It was terrible.) She got to make us chicken soup and get us medicine and make sure we were taking it and helping me use the thermometer, and just overall got to be needed and wanted and helpful in ways she knew how. She seemed to like it.

Alright, thanks for reading. Have a good evening.

Merry Christmas

Insert general apology for failure to update before now here.

So, what's up? I'm going to start with Christmas. I'll get on to the New Years bit later.

The boys had a good Christmas. (We don't do any religious stuff, I'm atheist-leaning agnostic, M is agnostic and prefers not to think too hard about his place in the cosmos, and J pretends she's non-practicing Catholic 'cos her mother said she would raise her daughters Catholic 'cos yay Catholosicm. Or however you spell it.) Great haul for people without a lot of spare cash. My toys were the cool ones, 'cos mine were the simple ones.

We did have to do it on Christmas Eve, firstly so I could spend it with them (I was planning on visiting my mother's side of the family on Christmas), and so that Mj could spend it with us, because he was going back to his mother's family on Christmas, too. So we woke the boys up around seven and dug out the toys.
I do remember that we had good food, but I cannot remember what it was, because it's late, and I'm resorting to Thanksgiving when I think of food.

Now, I said I was going to visit my family for Christmas. This is because I was planning on going alone. This has its practical side, of course, but it also has its painful truths and reasons and they make me angry.

See, I can't take my family home with me.
Sadly enough, not because of the polyamory. Though that's pretty odd, of course, but my family is not one nearly so discriminate against someone dating two people at once, even if those two people were dating.
But those two people would have to be male and white, and they're not. One fits one criteria, and the other fits the second, and between the two of them, introducing them as my dates would be bad, and even letting M show up would be.... It would not end well.

See, my grandfather and my uncle are horribly racist. My uncle more than my grandfather, 'cos my grandfather's more classist than racist, but those lines didn't used to be too far from one and the same. If you worked well and paid your bills, you were a man, but my uncle...
He told me a long time ago when he was helping me with my car that if I ever dated a black man, he'd take the car from me. And said a series of nasty things about darker complected human beings. (Get this,) said they were a curse upon Noah for having sex with one of his daughters, because of the incest.
There are several things wrong with this, to me, the least of which being Noah's lack of a daughter, the necessity of incest to repopulate, and the whole myth in the first place.
I do not approve. I do not agree. In fact, I told him at the time that I'd date a black man without any problems. I thought he was gonna hit me. And I also said that if he was gonna choose hate over love, that was up to him. And it is.
I'm not ashamed of my family. I'm just afraid of my uncle letting his stupid get in the way of Christmas. I have rather a large family, and the place we all meet is my grandfather's house, which is next door to my uncle's, and it just seems like a horrible idea to go provoking people there when I've got twenty people to see.

I caught a little flack, being honest about this, and most of the response is "Fuck those racist assholes". And I completely agree. And I have. Because I'm dating him anyway, aren't I? If they had their way I wouldn't be. If they had their way, I'd probably be married by now. And, like I said, don't wanna upset the hosts of the party, even if they're not the ones I'm there to see.

I told everyone I hadn't told yet. I didn't realize I hadn't told one of my sisters. Mom's still uncomfortable. I wish I could talk to her more about it, but I got baby brained while I was there (speaking of which, I need quiet alone time. I haven't had much since.... forever.), and I started talking about L and milestones, and talking about J's post-partum depression, and slowly but surely, she's getting more used to the fact. Now that she knows it's less... weird, I guess.

So far, my dads have dealt with it the best. They both just nodded and said, "Okay."

(Really, I didn't expect this to feel so normal, either. It's just so easy. I have no basis of comparison, but it really is just so easy. For me. It has its moments, of course.)

The boys are still too little to really get excited about Christmas. I can't wait for them to start grasping bigger concepts and getting more excited about stuff. Not looking forward to the shouting, but it's going to be so cute.

I wish I could talk more about our family's Christmas together, but honestly, it was really downplayed, really simple, and really easy. Simple introduction into Christmas with little kids. I know it'll get more.... enthusiastic, but honestly, it wasn't the reaction I was hoping for. I'll wait.