So before we opened the doors to polyamory (well, this time anyway), Susan and I had several discussions over jealousy on both ends. When I asked how she would feel if I started a relationship with another woman, she responded by saying that most likely, she would have an issue with it, until she could become adjusted to the situation.
Some background: Susan has a slight cognitive disability, stemming from a bad car accident years ago. She has some difficulty concentrating, especially when something is being told to her. It also reduces her ability to multi-task to nearly nil. Finally, her short term memory is almost non-existent. She has to set reminders whenever I ask her to do something, or whenever she knows a task needs to be accomplished.
All of this means that, especially coupled with the on again-off again school scheduling where we live, that she hasn't been able to find a job that would be worth the time and effort. She hasn't really worked at all since before our elder child was born...and thus she feels rather dependent upon me for the basic needs. She also has some weight issues; she's rather tall, just a couple inches shorter than I am...so that accounts for some of it. But she never lost all of her baby weight, and she's self conscious about her body anyway.
So she has some understandable insecurities about our stability, even with us being married for almost nine years, and even without any true fight between us for that entire time. We sat down this week, the day after Trina and I broke down the sexual wall between us, and discussed all of that, and worked our way through her jealousy.
What was really interesting was that Susan couldn't pin down what it was. She had no problem with the sex. She had some problems with who it was with, but recognized that it wasn't really her call to make past a certain point.
Now, to be fair, she DID have an issue with Trina, in that T wasn't willing to enter a sort-of-exclusive, more romantic commitment. She had hoped that I would enter a more...loving, I guess, type of relationship, something that would result in her becoming part of the family overall.
But then, we don't always get what we're looking for. In all honesty, I would never have thought I'd end up with someone like Susan...both physically as well as in temperament. I had always had an image of someone else in my head...and then I met her and all that went out the window. It's so far ended up the same with Trina. I want one thing, but here's something else...Susan calls it settling, and maybe to a certain extent it is, but I also know that Trina is not very likely to be a lifelong companion either.
In this case, I'm walking in, knowing what's going on, and knowing that it's not likely to last. I do, however, get some fun experiences (not all about the sex...I'd never have willingly gone for dancing if she hadn't followed up with me), as well as some much needed experience in dealing with women as a whole. Keep in mind, I've only ever dated two women prior to Trina...one of whom I've been married to for almost a decade. It kind of skews my perceptions about women in general to a certain extent.
After discussing all of that, Susan broke down her fears of me leaving, either with Trina, who's "perfect for me" (uh, no...nowhere near perfect), or with someone like her down the road. I comforted her with the truth of the matter...that I am not willing to lose Susan over other people. I did ask if she wanted me to stop seeing her, and talked about the fact that if one of us was poly, then that meant that both of us was. In the end, she was very quick to decline my offer of rolling things back into monogamy...topic closed there, for now at least.
I made sure I gave her my attention while we were talking, and in the end she was mostly comforted...later in the week, just prior to us attending a poly meetup, she disclosed that she finally nailed down what she was jealous over: not the sex, but the friendship I have with Trina. We chat over text a fair amount, and she's been around a fair bit. I'd thought that Susan had a similar style of dialogue with Ryan, but apparently they're not as chatty as I'd thought, which is kind of a shame.
Once she realized that, though, she was able to work herself past it and put herself on solid ground. Overall, I'm thankful that we had the experience we did this week...it showed that we can still communicate like adults, and work through problems instead of arguing about them and having it affect our relationship in a negative way.
