So the week that changed everything, well, changed everything. We're all operating under the assumption that we will be moving in together, whether that's here or in a different state. Obviously, Trina and I are completely on board, but Susan and Toby still have yet to make a definitive yes. We're still discussing as if it will happen however, to air out anything that might be an issue before then.
Oh yeah, and once they all left, Susan's meds kicked into high gear and she tumbled down into a rabbit hole of depression and despair. Oh joy. Essentially, she's always been depressed, and in the last decade or so, I've also watched as her dependence on me grew and grew. We've had multiple discussions about that, to the point where I've been telling her straight out that I can't be everything to her. She is a stay-at-home mom, but doesn't even have volunteering or anything else to get out. I've pointed her in the direction of animal shelters, political organizations, job listings, everything I could think of. Susan runs into a road block and gives up. The local schools don't allow her to volunteer, unlike the ones in California. The animal shelter never returned her calls, the local branch of her political party doesn't do shit, and there's no jobs she feels qualified to perform.
And I get that, I really do...but at the same time, I feel more and more of a burden to be her entertainment, to be her sole support in life...and it gets tiring. She does have family, but that's a mixed blessing.
So when this cropped up, it made her face her fears that my attention would no longer be on her. In her words, it's not the sex that she's concerned about. It's me simply not being there for her. She's concerned about losing tv watching time, or snuggle time, or venting time, or whatever. She's also afraid that I'll simply kick her to the curb as I've "upgraded" to a better model.
All of this would have been bad enough normally, except that where normally she'd be able to work through the crap her head is telling her, the shift in her meds simply wouldn't let her. For about a week and a half straight, she was sobbing on my shoulders at some point during the day. It got to the point where she had to get off the new medicine, and switch to something else...she was starting to have suicidal thoughts.
So she went off completely, even though she was supposed to wean herself off of the med. And it was night and day! We were able to have rational discussions about her fears and anxieties, and give her my reaction to them, and not have her dismiss what I said out of hand.
She went back on a different medicine a couple of days later, and I was afraid that it was a return to the darkness of the previous one - the first day back on meds, there was a discussion with tears about a different anxiety. Thankfully, she balanced out, and since then has been far better. Those anxieties, fears, and insecurities are still there of course, but she's able to shove that dark voice aside and listen to what I'm saying now.
Of course, as soon as she gets back on an even keel, the four of us are chatting via a group text app. Things are going great, and then Trina comes out with "can relationships be a sport?" There was more, but of course Susan and I focused in on that part. It didn't help that the followup was "but I want to win"...Susan had an immediate meltdown. I immediately sent back that the wording and timing was poor, and it was a poor joke overall. I didn't chat again for a few hours, as I talked through Susan's triggered fears of being shoved aside.
Re-reading the message, I realized what Trina was trying to say, that they needed to have someone stand up to them one-on-one. But the first read through looked like Trina was positing a competition between them and Susan...and that was an instant "oh shit".
Once I figured that out, Susan calmed down fairly quickly, but I was still pissed. She actually reached out to Trina to discuss it privately for a while, but it took a while before I came down from the trees. I ended up having a long chat with Trina about it myself, about the fact that I'm putting in a lot of work to smooth things over for them to be able to actually be around me in the future, and on a fairly permanent basis, and then Trina goes and chucks a landmine into the mess. I also did mention that normally, it would have been a fairly innocuous statement, but the situation itself needed more careful thought over word choice.
Through the entire process of that week and a half or so after they all left, Susan realized that what she needed was something she didn't get while they were here; a chance to see us interact, in the same house, with me not sleeping in our own bed, while Susan is "normal". To that end, after discussions over schedules, Susan and I agreed to pay for a flight out for Trina for MLK weekend! We'll still have the guest bedroom upstairs, and that's where I'll be on that Saturday and Sunday night...Trina and I are supposed to visit the city the day they get here, but other than that, there won't be the other distractions...it'll be more of a calm time, hopefully.
That's going to be the final test to see if Susan can handle things. She should be able to, as once her meds cleared up, she was in a much better and happier mood about things. Even at her darkest, she didn't want to say no, and not just because of her fears that she would be the villian. She's always been poly. This is, mostly, what she's always wanted, multiple families living under the same roof as equals. Her fears were that she wouldn't get to experience it at all. There's also the fact that she's currently the only one of us who's attached to only one person. Since she broke up with Ray back years ago now, her attempts at dating have been hit or miss, and mostly miss at that. Even Toby has a long-distance relationship spanning about four and a half years ago now.
So that's where we're at currently. Trina and I communicate fairly consistently, and the four of us remain in regular communication also. Toby has issues he's working through on his end, though he's fairly loathe to speak of them. Susan is fearful, but wants it to work. And Trina and I are overjoyed at the shift in our relationship...they've actually launched headlong into it, now that they've worked through their own misgivings about dating someone in the military again (along with others). I can't wait for January!
