Time alone

Tonight my nesting partner is at Mardi Gras with one of his partners and friends. As he sends me pics and vids I am happy and glad that I avoided the crowds. I am a mother hen and would have been so stressed trying to make sure everyone was safe and healthy while make bad life choices. I happily declined the invitation. Three days in and I am pondering those posts that pop up about what to do when your partner is away with someone else. Maybe it is the 3 kids, 12 hour work shifts, 6 events that I am running for the BDSM and Polyamory communities, creating training vids for new mods, hunting non monogamy types on OKCupid to ask them to join our group, etc but finding something to do when my partners are busy just doesn’t seem to be an issue.

If it is an issue to have time alone maybe that is a red flag. The kind that tells you that if you are sitting home feeling left out that you aren’t being present with those you are with, like your kids. Or the flag that waves when you feel alone, that its time to put yourself out there and make some new connections. The flag when you are bored, that you should get back to that hobby you have put off for a while. If you aren’t able to do any of those things, it might be a good time to assess your level of codependency on your partners. If you can’t enjoy life without them that is a big red flag.

Make a list of things that you love to do: singing in the shower, puzzles, playing board games, walking on the beach… Find things that you love. Find yourself. Being dependent on others for our happiness puts unrealistic expectations on partners and relationships. It is setting them up for failure. Be sad they are gone. Recognize the little green monster whispering in your ear. Don’t tell yourself that you cannot be happy without them. We love our partners. They bring us joy. We don’t need them to live life, be successful or find happiness. If we do, it’s time to do some soul searching.

Breakups and Grief

I have found myself harping on this lately and hope to teach a class in the near future. We often treat breakups in intimate relationships as though they are something that shouldn’t effect us. It bothers us that they had so much power to cause so much pain and that we meant so little to the other person. First, assuming how another person is feeling is a mistake. We aren’t mind readers and in our pain we filter their words and actions in a way that turns someone we loved into an ugly thing. We lose the beauty of that love and only have an ugliness that we use to cope with our feelings.

Secondly, breakups are a loss in our life. That person is often gone maybe forever. The reason for the breakup may have been a tragic and traumatic event for us. Breakups are a death and we go through the grieving process just like a physical death. Denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance. We will weave through these stages, back and forth and back again as we try to make sense. As we seek to understand. As we watch the world continue while ours feels like it is crumbling around us.

Those around us may not understand why we “don’t get over” that person. They aren’t “worth our tears”. The truth is, it isn’t about the person we lost. It is about us and healing. That self care and self love require us to go through that grieving process. There is no shame in it.

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