Who am I?
I am a mother of three beautiful daughters with a very supportive, loving husband with whom I have come through some very difficult trials throughout our nearly 17 year relationship. I come from an upper middle class suburban family. I went to college and had enough determination and intelligence to pursue a fairly challenging scientific career in the biotech field for a number of years before I came home to be with my daughters.
I have experienced a LOT of things in the course of my life that have influenced my current life-view:
Childhood emotional, psychological and sometimes physical abuse from my narcissistic mother, my alcoholic step-father and my oldest and youngest sister, abortion, miscarriage, co-dependency while my husband struggled with binge drinking, mistreatment during his binges, affairs (mine), and one attempt at a threesome with my husband and a male friend.
My husband and I came pretty close to giving up on each other more than a few times as we tried to navigate some of our very painful relationship concerns. I have been going through an identity, morality, and spirituality crisis. He had been coping with some deep-seated esteem issues as well as my issues.
I share these things to give a little bit of background context, not to throw a pity-party. I may talk about some of these issues. I may not. It depends on if it's relevant to my thought process.
There is a quote that I just adore:
Religion is for people who are afraid of Hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there. ~ Bonnie Raitt
This blog arose out of a conversation with someone I have long admired, but keep fighting with, because I keep misunderstanding what he tries to tell me.
One of the last misunderstandings I had was about this exchange:
To which, he repliedI've been trying to tell the truth to people, but I'm still dishonest. I try to tell the truth as far as I can go with it. My husband is right. I'll say one thing to him - with the intention of not just sparing his feelings and his ego, but also our marriage - but telling other people something else.
If this is a realization, it is a poignant one. Remember what I said about the chameleon? You look like a shapeshifter to me--regarding your heart/soul, anyway.And it hurt. It hurt because it does seem very true. It hurt so much that I didn't hear the caring underneath what I perceived as condemnation. So much did it hurt that I said something mean to him, because I can't keep my damn mouth shut when I feel ashamed. I can't just ask for clarification - I end up jumping the gun and saying rather mean things, rather than simply stating how things make me feel. That's a shitty habit of mine.
But if I am a shape-shifter at all, it's because I had been struggling with co-dependency, and I hadn't determined who I am now, what it is I really need, what is I want and how to ask for (and accept I won't always get it), and how I am going to conduct myself in the future.
I am, at times, greatly ashamed for the choices I have made. I am not a victim of my upbringing, or any life circumstance - though they've influenced my feelings- and I've never been at the mercy of anyone else in my relationships. I suppose I had been (at times, anyway) at the mercy of my own intense emotions as I tried to cope with the trouble that I managed to get myself into.
I lived my life the best way I was able to, clouded at times by my own fears and insecurities. I've missed out on having really good role models to emulate, though I've looked for examples in my real life. I have also not had a clear understanding of what healthy boundaries are, and I compromised what weak boundaries I had established in order to be close to people I admired.
My behavior has resulted from my own inability to be truly honest about what I needed and wanted and to ask for those things, my inability to delay gratification of those needs and wants and saying no to the things I did not need and want.
I was not willing to let go of things that are not working for me. I hadn't fully developed the capacity to do so. Things that work, flow freely, uninhibited. Things that don't, get caught up in a logjam. And the things that don't work need to change, or be released. It's that simple.
For most of my life, I was rational in my professional decisions. My personal decisions were another story. I was not committed to making fully conscious, well-thought-out choices in my relationships with people. And because of some number of years with logjammed communication with my husband, I was fearful that if I told my husband what I really felt, what I really thought I needed, he'd reject me.
I think too, with the way his esteem was for the longest time, he wasn't able to cope with some of these complex needs.
I had always assumed that there were only two choices. What family, society, religion, my husband expected me to be, or how I felt I wanted to be. This created a terrible internal conflict at times.
In some ways, I'd successfully chose my path. I was true to myself in some key ways. My career and my decision to leave my career was my choice - but I really wasn't prepared for the reality of the identity crisis that ensued. When children arrive, the choices are not without sacrificing something and this was always one of the key issues of feminism. So is a women's sexuality.
Each woman has to make peace with this conflict. Whose needs are more important? The individual's needs or the family's needs, the husband's or the wife's? Here's my take - they are equally important. Learning to compromise gracefully is the task that needs to happen. I don't think many of us have found that to be an easy one.
I've been wrong about a lot of things, but one of the biggest things I'd been wrong about was the capacity of my husband to adapt to new information about me. As more of the 'real' me comes out, he's a little surprised, but he's not running the other way. After a period of adjustment where he has needed to assimilate new information, he is able to offer me more empathetic support and I'm feel more safe to explore and discuss my hearts' wishes. In turn, I'm finding myself more in awe of him, and realizing he is turning into someone I like very, very much again.
For the time being...I am considering myself to be a recovering relationship addict. I'm also considering myself to be polyamorous. Though, for right now, I'm not sure which it is.
I am in no official sex/love addiction program (but mostly because there aren't any around here).
I have no sponsor.
I only have my husband...and this blog...and, a belief that I am competent and capable of making some decisions about how I want to conduct my affairs (pun intended).
I am not sure I want to get 'fixed'.
I simply want to learn how to change what's not working for us into something that can work for us.
My husband and I are in discussions about polyamory, so that cheating and secret-keeping won't be necessary.
Because of my new commitment to live with emotional honesty in my relationships, I am committed to determining just what my values, my wants and needs are and just where my boundaries lie.v And I'm learning that delaying gratification is imperative while I figure this out (learning the hard way, I might add, not because these things are self-evident to me).
I know there are a few blogs out there about polyamory. This is my personal space to write out my thoughts and feelings regarding exploring new frontiers in words before acting on them and honoring my husband, who has been phenomenally understanding even though I have challenged his once conservative values, feelings and beliefs.
Welcome to Unmasked.
Feel free to shed your masks and comment. No throwing tomatoes, though. I tend to throw them back.
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