We wanted to send our hugs, best wishes and the warmest of blessings to the South Texas Quad and their newest family member, a quad baby scheduled to make her appearance this morning .
Hugs to all of you.
Temptress ~et all
CONGRATS !!!!!! March 20, 2009
To What Never Was and Still Could Be January 24, 2009
When the four of us “coupled” over three years ago, we had it all figured out. We talked so much about roles and expectations I figured there was no way we couldn’t make it happen just the way we’d planned. We all had it down – who would do what, how we would fill in the gaps, how we would all have more and not less in this arrangement. This is where I could sight so many clichés about how life rarely becomes what you expect, and how each day is a surprise despite one’s better intentions.
But I don’t have designs to wax sentimental or paint rosy pictures about what I hoped our lives would be; I’m hurt and I’m angry and I’m currently living in a situation that is so far less than ideal for me – or any of us. I haven’t posted a lot about what is or is not going on in our family, because apparently sharing thoughts, ideas, and opinions tends to ruffle rooster feathers around here. But since there isn’t a lot of communication going on anyway, I’m just miserable enough not to care if my words raise the ire. It’s going to happen whether I cause it or the wind blows sideways, so I might as well voice my opinions.
I know none of us are happy about our present circumstance, and I think I’d be safe to say all of us are feeling unsettled and understandably irritable at the lack of resolution to what has been a rocky and ongoing roller coaster ride for the last two years. I’d even venture to say some days we look further from likely solution than we did when we thought things were unbearable. I guess it goes to prove you never really know how far you can fall.
What bothers me the most is how 95% of what we’re going through could have been avoided somewhere along the line. It’s a choice for any one of us to keep their mouth shut, to say kind and peaceful words, to follow through with promises, to avoid double standards, to keep a civil tongue, to be proactive on offers or invitations, to remember life isn’t always fair, to take turns, to forgive the past, to focus on what’s important, to be a giver rather than a taker, or to say “I still love you” even when we’re feeling wounded. Come to think of it, those things could totally reverse our fortune even still.
I’d love to wake up one morning to find past hurts forgiven and forgotten; to truly be able to move forward without old mistakes haunting us. I know that it is possible, but I don’t know if it’s probable. We’re all carrying a tremendous amount of hurt and a certain amount of guilt. None of us are innocent here, and no one is any more or less to blame. We all had parts we played.
I had a poly friend once use a fascinating analogy for how poly relationships work. She said relationships are like balancing on a ball. When two people are involved, they learn when one person bends, moves, or shifts the other must move in a comparable way. Over time they learn together to predict the other’s move, and how that change effects what they must do. With poly, as you add more people, every move or change affects each person in turn. One person moves, so person two moves, that requires person one and three to move, and that move requires persons two and four to shift, which means person one and three have to readjust, and it goes on forever… Sooner or later, all four are doing this continual tap dance just trying to find stability.
That analogy is a great visual for me. It mentally reminds me of standing on the bow of my father’s fishing boat as he navigated the wake. Not only do you have to have your sea legs, but you have to sort of anticipate the wave’s movement and depth. It can be a fun ride if you’re prepared and experienced, and those are two very large IFs. Our quad was totally experienced and stable as two sets of two. But we were TOTALLY ill equipped to be a cohesive four.
I think we’re now stuck in that perpetual tap dance mode. We’re so busy shifting and adjusting we can’t find our stability. One person can’t stabilize the ball alone, even two can’t do it. Even all of us working independently won’t do it. To repair us, to find our security, it will take all four of us working together at the same time, in the same direction, and with the same understanding. It will take a lot of effort, and I’m quite afraid we’re all exhausted.
We tried for a while, and then one of us would get distracted, or get our feelings hurt, or get frustrated, or let anger build. Or we would all do those things simultaneously. Those were “everyone go to your own corner and calm down” moments. Sooner or later, we’d begin to begin… again. The fear I have is that eventually, everyone will quite trying at the same time. Apathy will set in, or the wounds will be too deep to fathom healing.
I cannot and will not speak for the Big, Temptress, or Fix, but from where I stand right now, tonight, I know what I want. I can see it, I can feel it, I can put it into words. My opinion is that not all of us want the same thing anymore. Not all of us think this arrangement fills the gaps or gives us all more. Our realities have diverged; our attitudes and outlooks have been tainted by heartache.
What really keeps me awake at night is how four people with such a common goal and vision come to a place where we feel so far apart. So what do we do now and how do we proceed from here if any one of my loves cannot accept my reality and I refuse to exist in theirs?
Did I change that much? Did they? Did the NRE blind me to certain truths? Did I sacrifice more than I could live without? Did I promise more than I could follow through? I have to determine my own truths again before I can be a part of the bigger whole. And what am I willing to risk this time to bring it all together again? And what do I stand to loose if we all stop trying?
How does one go from having all the answers to having nothing but questions? I’m beginning to wonder if that isn’t the most enlightened form of evolution. “The more I learn the more I realize the less I know.” I once thought questions brought answers, but I see now that ignorance and arrogance is the most dangerous combination in human existence.
~ the laundry goddess, January 24, 2009
An Open Letter to Our Husbands March 4, 2008
You accuse us often of being of “one mind,” joined at the hip not only physically but mentally and emotionally. Well, this letter will probably make you think that is truer now than ever before. We are, in fact, two separate people. We have found ourselves in the same place at the same time in our marriages and within ourselves, both now and at times past. We know that you look at us now, wondering who are the women that you see before you.
We certainly don’t bear any resemblance to the women to whom you pledged your love and lives almost 2 decades ago. The women you see today do not dress the same, talk the same, make love the same, or even look the same. We have heard you call us selfish. We no longer bend to your will, we stand up for ourselves and let our wants and needs be known. We tell you that behaviors we once tolerated from you are no longer acceptable.
It is said that women marry men hoping they will change, and that men marry women hoping they won’t. Maybe that is youthful ignorance on our part, or yours, or both. The two of you have changed over the years as well… Perhaps more to the point, you have matured and settled in to the roles of husband and father rather than the roguish boys of your youth.
We married each of you because we love you. From your actions and words we created an idea of what we expected our life with you to be like. Over the years however, we made a grave error. In our quest to please you and create a calm, happy, and loving home we allowed you some freedoms and we took a few of our own that created particular patterns of behaviors. These predictable blueprints became structures we lived under for nearly 18 years.
One of us would choose to be the one who would always submit. In the quest for harmony she would allow you to be the one to lead; to influence her in your choices. You could always convince her that the way you saw things was the way they would need to be seen. She allowed her strong Christian upbringing to guide her in the ways of being a “proper” wife.
The other one of us would take the lead in the marriage, not to be domineering, but to manage everything that might remotely cause you strife or upset. She created a bubble of perfection and calm. Her greatest fear was that one day you would decide you wanted something else, so she protected you at all costs so you could find no fault or reason to stray.
In our efforts to create a happy home and find harmony we lost something important… ourselves. Over the years we tried to fill the holes that grew larger and more ominous with “things;” bible studies, civic groups, hobbies, children’s actives, friends both live and thru the internet. As time passed you became comfortable with the wives you saw and we became shadows of who we knew we really were inside. So the wives you came to know and the behavior you expected from them were really nothing more than the personas we projected. The more we tried to fill the inner gaps with events and undertakings, the harder it was to let our true selves out. After a time, we did not know who we really were; we existed as someone created for a purpose. And if we didn’t understand what we’d done, how could we ever expect you to know?
And then something happened. Almost simultaneously we hit bottom. Emotionally we had nothing left, we went thru the emotions of life not sure of who we were or what we wanted. We began to question everything about ourselves and our lives – about what was real, what we were taught to believe, and what we needed. We met each other and over the years drew strength from each other and as that friendship blossomed into love we finally felt with the other standing at our side we had the strength to let out who we really were inside and to finally reach for not only happiness in our lives, but true contentment within ourselves.
I’m acquainted with a sermon by Pastor Andy Stanley about spiritual drifting; however it is something that applies to us as wives. It is an analogy that I think suits us well. He said… (Paraphrased)
If you allow yourself to drift thru life just going along with the current, at some point in your life you come to a place where you have to make a stand. Either a stand for something or against something or you realize you are dangerously close to going over the edge of some imaginary emotional waterfall.
At some point you find life will force you to stand up. Where you are in the current when you plant your feet has a lot to do with how much pain the drag causes you. If you stand up early when the water is shallow and slow moving there will still be drag; but it will be more easily overcome. If you allow yourself to effortlessly float along on the river to where it is deep and swift, then once you realize there are changes to be made, if you can even touch bottom, you are faced with a huge amount of undertow. Sometimes the current is just so strong at that point that you may end up paying for the ease with which you floated along with the amount of pain and difficulty you face.
That is what we feel we did. We floated along allowing the river to move us on its course and not making one of our own. We passively allowed our life to dictate who we were, not the other way around.
So very often we hear, “You’re not the person I thought you were.” Okay fine. Then get to know the person we are now. Do not expect us to revert to who you thought we were. Not only was I not happy as that person, she was so contrived I don’t think I could recreate her. Please stop telling me, “I don’t know you, I don’t recognize you, MY wife would never do X… my wife would never say X.”
We still love you both to the depths of our being, but we are honest enough now to say “you do not fulfill me in all ways.” You bring me joy and happiness; you bring me love and satisfy my heart and soul in many ways. But there is more to me than I have let you see.
I need to stand up, be who I am inside and let the real me come to the surface. I need you at my side, loving me and letting me grow. I need you to take the time to get to know who I have kept hidden inside so long. Do not expect your will to be mine, or your wants mine. I still have the desire to please you in many ways, but now I want to do it with sincerity and a glad heart, not out of preconceived societal placed obligation as your wife.
Hi, it’s nice to meet you. We are your wives, the mothers of your children and two strong independent women. We would love for you to get to know us… we would love to spend the rest of our lives with you.
~ Temptress and The Laundry Goddess
My Pet Jellyfish March 1, 2008
Dreams and their interpretations have always been an amusing past time for me, like opening my fortune cookies; I never put a lot of credence in their meaning until about five years ago. For whatever reason, I spent the better part of six months having reoccurring dreams about my teeth falling out. At first no big deal, but after a while it became distressing. What could this mean? I spoke with some friends and then went out and bought a dream dictionary and another book on interpretation.
Since then I have been much more in tune with my nocturnal visions. On those mornings I awake with odd remembrances of strange creatures and unexplained adventures, I try and make sense of them, offering my loves a look into my warped realities of the night. A few nights ago I experienced another such perplexing image. As I began to piece together my story the next morning I related this to the loves over breakfast:
“I dreamed I had special ordered a pet. I was on my way to pick it up at the aquatic pet farm. When I arrived, I noticed a large gated area to the right of the barn and inside of it was this mud like goo where the animals were kept in stasis until they were claimed (think The Matrix.) As I approached this holding area, I noticed next to my pet, a jellyfish was a black sheep, and many other animal heads protruding into the air.
The farm extracted my jellyfish from the bin with a large crane type device and handed it to me. I couldn’t figure out how to take said pet home, so after questioning the establishment, they suggested I wear it on my head in a wig like fashion. I turned around and they placed the jellyfish on my head. Even though I was wearing a jacket, the tentacles kept flapping down my back and around my arms and stinging me. No matter what I tried to do with said jellyfish, it kept on stinging with its long graceful limbs flailing about. I couldn’t get home with this pet continually harming me, so I began to wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t have ordered the black sheep instead.”
Now I have some gut instincts on what my subconscious may be saying to me on this topic, but they are just suppositions based on my POV of late. Things have been in a state of semi upheaval for a while now and the brain has been engaged in some heavy duty thinking. Regardless, I think Freud would have a field day with this one.
~the laundry goddess, March 1, 2008
