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You Need Help: Should My Relationship Really Be This Hard?

Q:

Dear Autostraddle,

My partner and I have been together for about 9 years. We’ve built our lives together, and I can’t imagine what my world would look like without them in it. However, I’ve been really struggling with the way they approach conflict. More often than not, they really dig in. They sometimes say cruel or dismissive things, like that the conflict is proof that I never loved them. This ends up happening at least once a week.

I also want to clarify that these fights won’t necessarily be over something big (for example, last week, we had a fight over the fact that I forgot to put the toothpaste back in the bathroom after using it, which messed up their evening routine). That can make it hard for me to guess when I’m doing something that’ll upset them. This gets even more tricky because we’re both neurodivergent and have strong triggers from past abusive relationships (both romantic and familial), and all of this manifests in ways that cause more friction.

I’ve had many conversations with them about it. I’ve tried to change how I engage with them during those conflicts. I’ve also tried removing myself from the situation when it happens to give us both space. None of it works. Potentially, therapy would help, but neither of us can afford it with our current jobs.

I’m not trying to deflect blame. I know there are ways I don’t react well to conflict myself and that I’ve had my fair share of fuck-ups. But I don’t feel like it should be this hard all the time.

I’d really appreciate any advice.

A:

Oh, friend. No, it is not supposed to be this hard.

Everyone gets up on the wrong side of the bed occasionally. Most people accidentally snap at a partner every once in a while. We’ve all said something we regret during the heat of an argument, once or twice. But weekly, sustained arguments over things like forgetting to put back the tube of toothpaste? Fights you can’t predict in which you find yourself defending basic facts, such as the fact that you love your partner? That’s not okay. It’s not okay regardless of the trauma in your partner’s past. It’s not okay even if you’ve “had your share of fuck-ups.” Everyone fucks up. But your partner is enacting a sustained pattern of harmful behavior. You don’t deserve it, and it needs to stop.

Loving someone who asks you to prove your love, or who takes innocuous actions as proof of some sort of slight against them, is such a destabilizing spot to be in. It’s destabilizing not only because your partner has connected the dots between two points that don’t have anything to do with one other (say, toothpaste and love), but also precisely because you do love your partner, and you want them to know it! When small actions lead to big accusations, it’s really natural to work as hard as you can to avoid causing any of those arguments. But irritants and triggers can’t always be avoided, and they definitely can’t be guessed at. Moving through the space of your relationship as carefully as you are is unsustainable. And I want to be very clear: whatever your partner is going through in the moments where things like toothpaste trigger larger conflicts, you did not cause it. Inadvertently setting off a trigger is not the same as deliberately causing harm.

It’s not surprising that even though you’ve tried to come at these conflicts from various angles (processing, distancing, etc.), it’s not working. I noticed that while you mention a lot of work that you’re doing to try to avoid these patterns, I haven’t heard about any work that your partner is doing, or how they communicate in between arguments. Does this pattern seem to work for them? Are they taking any steps to break it? If there’s hope for your relationship to continue, they’ll need to do some real work. You can support them in it, but you can’t do it for them. You can’t fix it alone.

I’m sorry that couples therapy is out of reach for you at the moment. For now, I’m wondering if you’d like to practice setting a hard boundary with your partner, and maybe work out a couple of scripts for how to disengage. These boundaries would involve refusing to follow your partner down the garden path of cruel or dismissive accusations. For example, with the toothpaste: “I’m sorry I forgot to put the toothpaste back. I know why it’s important to you. I won’t engage in further conversation about it right now. If you continue, I will leave this space.” I know you’ve made attempts to interrupt the pattern before, but I really want to emphasize that you need not even reassure them that you love them. That’s simply off-topic. (If they’re able to have a clear and helpful conversation about the toothpaste, what it’s triggering, and your systems for shared spaces, without making accusations or false connections, that’s great! But if not, that’s something you’ll need to do much later, when they’ve cooled off.)

Another aspect I’m wondering about is what it looks like when you assert your needs. Often when we find ourselves having to do a lot of defense, our own needs fly right out the window. It can be hard to remember even what they were because our partner’s needs are taking up so much space. I hope you can think about your own needs and goals and what a relationship might look like if there was equal space for you. Was there a time in this relationship when that was the dynamic? Do you think there’s any possibility of there being equal space again?

Nine years is such a long time to build a life together, and I really want to honor what you and your partner have had. If there was a time when there was trust between you, when you felt like you and your partner were on the same side, a time before you felt you had to walk on eggshells, maybe that will be possible again! I do think that it will only be possible if your partner is willing to put in real work on identifying and interrupting these patterns within themselves. If you can’t have some really honest conversations about what a sustainable future might look like together, it might be time to start taking some concrete steps towards breaking up.

Wishing you the very best of luck. 💙

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

You Need Help: Am I Still Into Non-Monogamy or Not Really?

feature image by Zackary Drucker for The Gender Spectrum Collection

Q:

My partner and I have been monogamous for 5 years, non-monogamous for 1 year. When we decided to open last year, we were both equally interested. At first, I was very excited and had a lot of great experiences, and I feel like on paper, I have what I wanted: a beautiful community of queers who I have sex with from time to time and an anchor partner I am so excited to be with. But fast-forward a year later, and I feel extremely ambivalent. About 8 months in, the inevitable feelings of anxiety and insecurity, miscommunication, stress, constant emotional processing, re-hashing boundaries, and logistics were wearing me down. A bunch of outside life events came to a head, and my mental health tanked. A similar thing happened to my partner, and they asked to slow down going on dates or hookups. I ultimately asked for a non-monogamy break a couple of months after that.

The break just started, and I’m worried that I’m just not as non-monogamous as I thought I was. I know it’s hard opening up relationships and I’ve read the books, gotten the therapist, am “doing the work,” but I miss the simplicity and security of one sexual partner. I also love the friends I see, but I could take or leave sex with them at this point. My partner is not sure what relationship structure feels best for them right now, but has mentioned that they do find some things great about non-monogamy, and it feels sort of worth it to them to do the work. I feel just the opposite, it’s sort of not worth it to me anymore.

I’ve expressed my increasing ambivalence, but I also wonder if I’m ambiamorous, where sometimes I do want non-monogamy and feel great in it, and other times it’s just no longer for me. How do I navigate not knowing for sure whether monogamy or non-monogamy is for me? And how do I communicate that to my partner and my sexy friends?

A:

Hello, dearest!

I’m coming to you from the cozy cavern of a seventeen-year-long monogamous relationship, which may make you wonder why I’d feel at all able to answer your question. However, what that long bout of monogamy doesn’t belie is that I’ve also experienced what I, in my youth, incorrectly categorized as “experimenting with non-monogamy and polyamory.” After learning the term for the first time a few years ago, I’ve ultimately come to the conclusion that I’m definitely ambiamorous. I can’t say if you are, too, of course, but I’d love to help you explore the questions in front of you.

Non-monogamy has been appealing to me for about as long as I’ve been a person who dates other people. It’s always made sense to me, personally, in that romance, sex, and love have always been unique and separate things for me and I know for a fact that you can love more than one person at the same time. My first serious teenage relationship was open for the majority of our one year together and we were actively dating other people and having multiple relationships for most of that time. We lacked the adulting communication skills to actually maintain our relationship as we both grew into different life stages, but I had only positive feelings about the non-monogamous aspect. In my very next relationship, I was monogamous with my boyfriend of three years. We, again, lacked the adult communication skills to support each other through growth and the evolution of ourselves, but monogamy wasn’t the primary problem.

I have had and can imagine having different types of relationships with different types of people. Non-monogamy is delightful and can look many different ways. Monogamy can be joyful when practiced intentionally. Trust and room for individual growth have always been at the center of my most successful relationships and that’s true of my current monogamous relationship of almost two decades.

OK, so that said, I feel like, within certain feminist and queer communities, non-monogamy is sometimes presented as the most radically ethical, liberated thing to do a.k.a. the best way to show how queer you are and how free you are from the cisheteropatriarchy. To be 100% clear, I’m not saying that non-monogamy is trendy or forced. I actually think it’s a very logical and natural way for humans to live and love. I’m glad it seems to be increasingly normalized and that queer people are leading the way in busting down the doors of conformity and heteronormativity even within poly and non-monogamous discourse. What I’m saying is that there can be loads of pressure to conform to what a certain vision for queerness is, and that can include a lot of stereotypical things including practicing ethical non-monogamy even when you’re not sure that it’s right for you.

I, myself, went through a period of time during college when I declared I’d never be monogamous again. And I meant it at the time. This was coming out of that three-year monogamous relationship with my lovely heterosexual boyfriend, after which I tumbled into another queer couple’s lovely open relationship. It felt very liberating to make this declaration at that time in my life and it’s true that I think having multiple partners can be a lot of fun! And meaningful! And loving! And amazing! Honestly, it brings me a lot of joy and I totally could imagine myself having ended up in an open or poly relationship.

That said, my truth has also been that monogamy also works just fine for me. As you said, I’m kind of ambivalent about it. If I’m in a loving, fulfilling relationship, where I’m also trusted and supported and encouraged to have a wide social network, where we see our relationship as a living thing that changes over time, I’m down with monogamy. I don’t feel stifled. There are pros and cons of course, but so long as I am free to create other types of intimate relationships (friends, crushes, chosen family, etc.), I’m good!

Even though I have practiced and agree with the concept of ethical non-monogamy in various forms, I’ve never related to poly folks who feel very deeply and earnestly that monogamy can’t work for them. I’ve never felt that I need it in my relationship or my life, which made me question whether I could call myself part of the poly community for a long time. Finding ambiamorous orientation as a real option and realizing others felt as I do was pretty exciting.

What I’ve learned about myself is that, much like gender doesn’t dictate who I’m attracted to as a queer pansexual bisexual non-monosexual person, whether we are monogamous or not isn’t what brings me satisfaction in a relationship. I want to be in a relationship with someone with whom I can have intentional and consensual understandings about the boundaries of our relationship, where we are both able to grow and change individually and together, and where we make choices about how to engage other people and other types of intimacies. It’s not particularly important what comes from that so much as that we have made the choices intentionally, together.

So back to you. As you write in your question, it takes a lot of work to have a healthy non-monogamous relationship. (Frankly, it takes a lot of work to have a monogamous one, too, or it should, but many don’t realize they need to be actively working on their monogamous relationship boundaries and evolutions.) Especially if you have, as it sounds like you do, an “anchor partner” whose relationship you prioritize over other relationships you cultivate, it can be a lot of time-consuming and complex communication. It often requires a lot of communication and constantly navigating boundaries and feelings and, oh boi, schedules. I think, if it brings you joy, it’s very much worth the work! And if your head isn’t in it right now and if you don’t feel like you even need to practice it, that’s OK, too.

Only you know what’s in your heart. It could be that you’re ambiamorous. Or maybe you’re just reconsidering the boundaries of your current relationship. Or maybe you actually prefer monogamy for any number of reasons. From what I understand, being ambiamorous can mean that you have no preference for monogamy or non-monogamy. It can also mean that someone is equally happy in monogamous or non-monogamous relationships. There’s a subtle difference there that feels important to underline. It can mean absolutely no preference at all and it can also mean a slight preference, but the ability to be happy in either type of relationship. And I think, I believe, like all things related to sexuality and attraction, it can also be a thing that fluctuates regularly and that’s very individual to the person. For me, it’s also individual to the person who I’m in a relationship with.

While relationships where one person is monogamous and one person is non-monogamous can definitely work, I personally like to be exactly on the same page as my partner in this way. If I have a partner who is monogamous, I want to be monogamous. If I have a partner who’s poly or open to non-monogamy, I want to explore that together! And regardless of how the relationship is structured, no matter what, we’re going to need to have shared values and understanding around what’s OK, what’s not, and how we approach our individual orientations to both attraction and behavior with others. For both monogamous and non-monogamous relationships, that approach and those boundaries and needs can change over time and need adjusting.

This brings us to how to talk about this with your partner and “sexy friends.” It sounds like you already have pretty good open communication going with your partner and your friends, so I don’t think that’s what you are asking about — how to talk to intimate people in your life. I think you’re asking how you communicate to them, specifically, that you are ambivalent about monogamy and that it may change for you from time to time or that you’re in the process of figuring that out.

I think first you need to separate what you feel and want from what your partner feels and wants. I know I just said I like to match up with my partner, but that’s because I know that’s what I want. What do you want? Take your partner out of the picture for a second. Stop and think about what you, truly, desire. In your question, you expressed that sometimes monogamy works for you and sometimes it doesn’t. You also wrote that you currently crave the “simplicity and security of one sexual partner.”

Regardless of how you identify, is that where you are right now, this day? Do you feel like your orientation fluctuates regularly or infrequently? When you think about opening your relationship again, how does that make you feel? When you think about remaining monogamous forever, how does that make you feel? If the answer is that you feel like either option is fine, you may indeed be ambiamorous. If you find yourself having an adverse reaction to one direction or another, it’s possible you’re not. If you asked yourself all those questions and are finding you don’t have answers right now, that’s ok! You don’t have to have the exact answer right now. You just have to have thought through what you actually do know (even if it’s that you don’t have the answer yet) and how it feels to you, taking your partner(s) out of the calculation entirely.

Now let’s bring back in the other folks, especially your “anchor partner.” The next question to ask yourself is how you feel about your anchor partner making this choice for themselves. It sounds like your assessment is that they prefer non-monogamy and would like to get back to that. If you’re currently more into monogamy, how would you feel if your partner was non-monogamous and you were not? Would you still feel compersion for your partner? Would you feel differently if they pursued other folks and you didn’t? Would you be comfortable with them practicing non-monogamy while you figure out where you’re at and what you want? Do you think your partner would be comfortable with you having a more fluid identity that can change from time to time? Do you know what you’d need from your partner to make that happen? Do you think they’d be able to support you? And you, them?

In other words, thinking of your and your partner’s desires and needs separately from each other, can you imagine a future where you’re both getting what you need? Can you imagine that future together? What I read into your question isn’t a concern about how to bring up difficult topics or navigate boundaries. It seems like you’re already doing that well, in that you have evolved your relationship more than once and are in conversations about your relationship right now. What I think you’re really worried about is if your partner, who you love very much, is on a different path than you and if this will lead to you going off in completely different directions.

I won’t lie. It very well might. It’s also possible that it will work out just fine. You’re going to have to talk to them to find out. You’re going to have to find out what they need. You’re going to have to ask for what it is you need. First, you have to determine what you need.

I don’t think you need advice on how to have that conversation, but for the benefit of the wider internet, I always recommend that you bring up relationship talk in a neutral place, not in bed or right after intimacy, not in a place where either of you would feel exposed or vulnerable. A private chat during daylight hours works best for tough discussions. Given that you already, it seems, talk regularly about your relationship, you could even ask for a time to talk and put it on the schedule. When you do talk, realize that it may be hard. You may have more questions than answers coming out of the talk. It may surface new feelings or reactions for you. It may require more than one conversation and you or they may need time to think it all through in between. If you’ve never had this type of talk before, it can be much more challenging for everyone involved than if you are already regularly discussing your relationship, as it seems like you are!

Whatever you decide, you deserve to prioritize your happiness, to be seen and understood, and to have a relationship or relationships with others who lift you up and love you as you are. Choosing non-monogamy or monogamy or a more fluid understanding of monogamy should feel like a real decision made fairly, not a burden or consolation sacrifice made on the altar of love. I wish you much happiness, safety, and a life full of love, whatever your path forward looks like. Best of luck figuring it all out!

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

You Need Help: My Girlfriend Has No Queer Friends, Is That a Problem?

Q:

Okay, so I met this incredibly adorable queer woman a little over a year ago. We started dating long-distance (about a 3 hour drive), fell in love, and eventually became a couple. We have now decided to move in together. I’m leaving the big city to join her small town life, to try to make a life there of my own.

I identify as a non-binary dyke, I’m very much into queerness — it’s where I feel at home, it’s what I’m attracted to, and it’s an integral part of who I am. My girlfriend looks queer af and is decently versed in queer culture and theory. However, she doesn’t have a single queer friend in her home town. I’ve felt an unease about this fact throughout our relationship. Mainly because I believe that queer people need each other, for support and community and a sense of belonging. My girlfriend says that she has gotten all that from her bio-family and straight friends. She hasn’t felt a sense of queer lack (which I felt pretty much immediately upon meeting them all). Now that we’ve decided to move in together, in her town, I’m scrambling to try and meet other queers, especially as we are also thinking about becoming parents together. She has said, after I’ve asked her about it, that she does want to find other queer parents for the sake of a future child to have some other families to look to, that looks like ours, so that ours wouldn’t feel so different. But I find it baffling that she hasn’t felt this need in regards to herself.

I’ve tried talking to her about it, but she gets very defensive and feels like I’m saying she isn’t queer enough. Of course she is queer enough! I just want to understand why she hasn’t seen the need to build queer relationships, other than a singular romantic/sexual one. Am I supposed to be the only queer person she is close to and can talk about navigating a cis hetero normative society with? I feel pretty alone in this, in my need for queer friends and community. And I’m scared that me voicing my concerns doesn’t inspire her to reach out to other queers, but simply makes her feel inadequate and ashamed.

Please Autostraddle, I need some solid advice on how to deal with this issue! We are both open to couples therapy, (though of course my concern is that there won’t even be an lgbtq friendly therapist to talk to in her town) but it would also be so incredibly appreciated to get help with some good talking points, from which we could begin to understand one another, and not dig ourselves deeper into our own defensive trenches.

A:

Hello friend!

I want to validate your feelings: you are moving to a new, unknown phase in life and lifestyle. You have anxiety about the differences in the ways you and your partner move through the world. You’ve been in a place that’s felt safe — a big city surrounded by queer community — and may be losing some of that soon. That is scary!

I also want to say, though, that if my girlfriend consistently pressed me to change the way that I live despite my very clear messages that I am happy exactly as I am, I would break up with her. This is very clearly your problem, not your girlfriend’s problem, and resolving it will be your work, not hers.

Queer community is very important to you. That’s fine! What isn’t is imposing this belief, that “queer people need each other, for support and community and a sense of belonging,” on your girlfriend. That’s your valid opinion, not a fact. You insist that she feels a “queer lack” despite the fact that she clearly doesn’t, and are “baffled” that someone could have a different experience of the world than you, could have different needs than you, could be perfectly fine living their life their way instead of yours. This is where the problem lies: you don’t appear to even be making an effort to understand or respect her perspective.

The fact that you mentioned that she “looks queer” and is “decently versed” in queer theory and culture, as positive things seemingly in her favor, indicates to me that being queer is a, maybe the, defining aspect of your identity. I personally don’t feel like that’s a good thing, but if that works for you, fine. For many of us, being queer is one aspect of who we are among many. That’s a perfectly reasonable way to be, and it’s obvious to me why you’re making her feel like she’s “not queer enough.”

Her lack of queer friends does potentially impact you, and that’s a legitimate concern. That’s where you need to put your focus. You’ve given some hints about these fears — you’re going to want to parent and have other queer families for your child to interact with, and it’s definitely legitimate to worry about being overburdened with emotional labor when it comes to queer issues. But she answered the parenting question, and you’ve been together for a year and the emotional labor issue doesn’t seem like it’s been a problem so far. If it actually has, talk with her about that. But if not, it likely won’t be in the future either. It’s going to be crucial for you to dig into why this is causing you distress and making you feel “alone.”

Do you believe that all of y’all’s friends need to be mutual, and fear that if she has straight friends, you’re stuck with them too? Are you realizing this is lessening your attraction to her, given that you’re attracted to queerness? Are you actually externally processing your anxiety about moving to a small town and projecting it onto this issue, when it’s really about your own fears about being able to find enough queer community there? Do you have an unspoken, maybe unanalyzed desire to have her support in making friends in your new town, and feel let down that she’s not interested in supporting you in this way (by the way, it’s unfair to be disappointed when people don’t do things you haven’t asked them to do)?

It’s not often acknowledged, but queer issues are, at their core, universal. Two of my best friends and my girlfriend are cis, and I’ve never had a problem talking about trans issues with them. I’ve never had a problem talking about queer and trans issues with straight friends. Sure, they don’t fully understand the depth of certain things, but good friends can commiserate, empathize, and even offer advice because they love and care about you, not because they’ve been through the exact same thing. It’s fine to seek affinity groups, but it’s not necessary for everyone. Why do you feel like you can only connect deeply with people who have had a very similar lived experience to you? Have you struggled to make deep, loving, intimate friendships in the past? Is this actually your insecurity?

I wonder if you have trauma related to your own biological family and/or straight, cis friends rejecting you, abandoning you, or letting you down? If the only way you’ve been able to find safety is in creating a queer chosen family, giving up having them in proximity would seem scary, and unsafe, and might lead you to fear that your girlfriend’s straight/cis circle is going to eventually reject/abandon her like they did you. You may even have potentially subconscious envy that your girlfriend has the kind of community that you deserve but were denied. It’s totally reasonable to have these feelings (if you do) and to have created safety in the best way you’ve been able. But it’s possible that her definition of safety is different from yours and is also valid.

You want to understand “why she hasn’t seen the need to build queer relationships.” But she has very clearly explained that she has her friendship needs met already; you just don’t accept her answer. Are you sure you respect her? You’re coming across as believing she’s deluded, or naive, or an idiot. Why can’t you accept her worldview as legitimate? Why is her friends’ identities so important to you? Isn’t it more important that her friends are kind, supportive, and loving than whether they’re queer? Isn’t it more important that they share values than sexuality?

You’ve made it clear that, despite the fact that you’re making your life partner, future spouse(?) and co-parent feel “not queer enough,” “inadequate,” and “ashamed,” you still believe that you are right and she is wrong. You seemingly wrote this expecting a response like Em’s recent guide on making queer friends and some extra talking points to help you convince your partner to do your bidding. If she decides for herself that she wants to make queer friends, great! But I don’t think she does, and I think you’re wrong for essentially believing that you know the correct way to be a queer person and your partner doesn’t. She feels inadequate because you are communicating to her clearly that you believe she is inadequate.

You are the one who needs to fill in your defensive trench, not her. You need to do some empathetic introspection. Have you really considered her position? It doesn’t sound like you respect, understand, or appreciate her. To be honest, at least based on the small amount of information given in your letter, it doesn’t sound like you actually love her. Now, that’s unlikely to be true, but love is when you accept someone as they are, not as you desire them to be. It sounds like you’re projecting your insecurity onto her instead of processing it yourself. You need to do some work journaling, in therapy, and/or otherwise thinking deeply about what makes you feel safe, the degree to which this move is raising your anxiety, and if there’s a way your partner can support you emotionally through the process. You also need to think deeply about what you believe about how queer people should move through the world, and why you feel the need to control how your girlfriend does.

Until you figure out why her not having queer friends bothers you so much and what you’re actually afraid of, and give up on controlling her and being the architect of how she lives her life, you’re going to remain baffled and unhappy. Resentment will likely build, and you’re potentially setting yourself up for failure. Instead of telling your girlfriend what you think she should do, share with her what you’re afraid of and why, and why you’re the one who needs support in navigating this change in life — not her.

Good luck!

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

You Need Help: Trusting Yourself After Leaving an Abusive Relationship

Q:

Right after my ex broke up with me, I felt heartbroken and devastated, but proud of myself for the love and generosity that I was capable of — I had no regrets, I had loved her deeply and fully. 3 months and 2 therapists later, I’m beginning to see what friends and family suspected long ago, that she was emotionally and sexually abusive to me. I love her still so much, I know the cruelty she treated me with was only because she had been treated so cruelly by others and turned that inward on herself, and I’m a casualty of that. But I’m beginning to see my love and empathy as a flaw. How can I trust myself again, when I know how many red flags I excused away, how many second and third and fourth chances I gave, how much I sacrificed my own self love in the name of “loving” another. Is that love, or just sickness? How can I feel good about any of it now?

A:

The first thing I want to say is that I’m so sorry you had this experience with someone you loved, who you trusted. Being in an abusive relationship is very devastating and destructive, and I want to acknowledge your heartbreak over this upfront and tell you that it is completely normal and natural to feel those feelings.

It helps me to process things by hearing other people’s experiences with them, so I’ll share this: after having a free counselor for a couple of months, I graduated from treatment and had to find a new therapist. At the time I was in a relationship, and I went into therapy with the express purpose of being a better partner to the woman I was with. Over the course of a few months with my new therapist, I realized I was also in an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship with my ex, and I started making my exit plan.

I had been convinced by my ex that all my behaviors were wrong so that I couldn’t see that she was isolating me, pressuring me into sex when I didn’t want it, and, toward the end, trying to control my finances. When I left that relationship I didn’t take the time to grieve it. I jumped into the next thing, and ended up breaking my own heart even more. I was pressuring myself not to grieve and not to mourn the loss of my relationship and robbed myself of that processing in the pursuit of “getting over it.”

I hope you have the support of those family and friends you mentioned through this. I also just want to highlight a couple of things you said.

It’s really gracious and important that you realized that your ex’s behaviors were a function of how cruelly she was treated by other people in her life. It is often a fact that people that abuse were once abused themselves or witnessed abuse in their homes. That reality, no matter how heartbreaking, is not a justification for the abuser’s behavior. Once a person crosses over into being a perpetrator they are responsible for their own actions and have to deal with the repercussions. This might sound harsh, and I’m not saying people who abuse should be robbed of all community, I think the opposite is true. Just as you have your family and friends for support, hopefully, your ex has the same and a mental health professional on her side to guide her through her own healing.

It’s okay to still love her, I would say it’s even normal. When you’ve invested your heart and your time in someone that way, the love doesn’t simply disappear after bad treatment by that person. It can linger, you can find yourself missing them. I often found myself wanting to call my ex when I got good news, even after months of separation.

Your love and empathy are not flaws. I know it is hard to trust yourself after you’ve been hurt this way, but you shouldn’t shut down your heart in the face of it. It’s important to keep your heart open during this time so you can receive love and care from those around you. The thing about abuse and abusers is that they often heavily rely on this kind of self-blame. If you are focused on what you supposedly did “wrong,” the person that abused you is granted a sort of innocence. We often ignore red flags when they are countered with loving actions after they are revealed. It’s an abuse tactic to pair cruelty with affection so that you as the person being abused say things like “it’s not that bad” or believe the offending behavior is a one-off.

The question of how you can trust yourself after this is complicated, it takes work. You have to shift from the self-blaming language of viewing your empathy and love as a flaw to viewing the abusive behaviors as a “flaw” of your ex. You can have empathy for the ways she was hurt while fully acknowledging that she hurt you. Blame is a harsh word, so I’ll say you have to lay responsibility with her.

You will certainly find yourself falling in love again, and when you do, and you notice some red flags, you have to be an unflinching judge as to whether that is a behavior you can deal with. That is a skill you will have learned from this experience. You may be in pain right now, but what you know is that you can survive an experience like this. Your therapist will be of immense help with this as well. It might even help to talk with your therapist about the specific red flags your ex exhibited and discuss ways to approach that in conversation if you see them in future partners. Ask your therapist about books on surviving intimate partner violence. Listen to podcasts about it. Spend some time learning about the experience from a psychological standpoint so that you feel less alone, and can begin to shift away from absorbing all of the responsibility yourself.

The last thing I want to address is your last question: how can you feel good about any of it now? In my case, my ex was my first love. After I ended the relationship I burned every love letter, threw away gifts, deleted all our pictures together. I didn’t want to feel good about any of it, I wanted to erase it. Now, a few years removed, I’ll occasionally get hit with a good memory. When that happens, I try not to feel shame or to strike down the memory where it stands. Because the truth is I was in love with her. No matter what she did to me I still consider her my first true love, and will sometimes think about our fond memories. That’s okay to do. If you find yourself laughing or smiling at a memory, don’t beat yourself up. You were in love, and cared about her very deeply, that doesn’t change even in the face of abuse.

Healing looks different for everyone. You might have to go no contact with her for months or years, especially if she doesn’t acknowledge how harmful her behaviors were. You might have to get rid of the things she gifted you, delete that text thread, block her number. I strongly recommend blocking the offending person in the case of abusive relationships but it may not be necessary for you. This sounds corny, but what your heart and head are telling you will let you know. Do you feel like you need no contact? If so, initiate that. You mentioned that you feel like you sacrificed self love in the pursuit of loving another, so spend as much time as you can replenishing the well of self-love you have. Treat yourself kindly during this time, it can be destructive if you don’t.

One other thing: there may come a time where you shift from being very sad to being very angry. I just want to validate that anger for when it comes. You don’t have to be afraid of it, because anger has its use.

I hope the next few months or years of your life are filled with the love you want to receive, that the love you put into the world and into others is reflected back to you. You deserve to be treated with respect and honor and grace. Remember that when you feel yourself doubting your heart and mind in the future.

DJ

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

How To Plan a Cozy, Sexy Holiday Date Night

No matter which holigay you celebrate (or ignore, you do you), this time of year is often stressful, exhausting, and expensive. And in spite of the wide variety of Hallmark films and happily-ever-after novels to the contrary, romance can feel out of reach at this time of year. With the pandemic still impacting our world and the holidays around the corner, expanding your idea of what a gift can be might help you feel more inspired, excited, and eager to connect with your favorite person or people. Gifts don’t have to be physical objects — we can also give the people that we love our time, attention, and energy in more experiential ways, showing them that they’re a priority with our words, actions, and intentions. Setting up a sweet, sexy date-night-in for your partner or polycule can be an incredibly meaningful experience, as well as a beautiful way to show your care and affection. If your holidays include sharing a meal, exchanging presents, or visiting family, you might find that integrating some or all of these suggestions can help you carve out intentional time for your special someone, and make sure that they feel cared for apart from everything else that may be happening. And if you’re in a long-term relationship or live with your partner, this can be a thoughtful and loving way to shake things up. (As a note: while this guide was put together with a romantic holiday date night in mind, you could absolutely tweak this to make a sweet and platonic gift evening for a friend, roommate, family member, or anyone that might be craving some love and care. Take what you need and leave anything that doesn’t apply!)

Whether you make this a special date night all its own or incorporate these ideas into a larger celebration, I’ve got everything you need to make a cozy, sexy, romantic holiday date night for your beloved.

Choose the space & time

First, figure out where this date is happening. If you live alone or with your partner, this might feel like a no-brainer, but if you share space with roommates or family, this could take a little more planning. Ideally you can set things up in a room where you won’t be disturbed, like a living room, bedroom, sunroom, indoor patio, basement, attic, or den. If you need to, ask anyone that shares your space if you can have an area or the whole space to yourself for a designated time. And if the only way to guarantee privacy is to set up the date in your bedroom, that absolutely works too.

Pick an evening that you know you and your partner will have free, or are already planning to spend together. If your person likes surprises, this can be a fun thing to have ready and waiting for them — just take care to ensure that they’ll actually show up at the right moment.

Ask them out

You know your person best, but in my experience, building up a little anticipation makes evenings like this even more lovely. Don’t underestimate the magic of saying, “I want to plan a special night for us and I’d like to do it at {this place and time}. I’ll take care of everything — you won’t have to lift a finger.” Planning is sexy, and I will die on this hill. Make sure they have the night free, that they know where to be and when to be there, and then you can start your prep.

Figure out the mood

Are you going for sexy and romantic, or cozy and comfy? Do you want to facilitate intimate conversation, help your partner relax and have fun, or drag them off to bed as quickly as possible? There are no wrong answers, but depending on the vibe you’re going for, you can choose music, activities, and your outfit accordingly.

two smiling black queers reading together in bed

i love when you read me audre lorde

Think about what would be special for both you and your partner, and how you can create the mood you’d like without putting too much pressure on the evening going one way or another. Has your partner been running a mile a minute and is in desperate need of some quiet downtime? Have they been bored and restless, feeling a little stir-crazy with the lack of travel or holiday parties? Has it been awhile since you’ve had time together, just the two of you? This is an evening for them, but you can include aspects that you love as well. Blending your individual interests and needs together can make for a special and personalized night that you both love, and thinking about what they might be craving can help you build a date that inspires and excites each of you.

Gather supplies

Making sure that you have everything that you need ahead of time will make the date itself feel fun, relaxing, and intimate, so do yourself a favor and get organized in advance. Depending on where you’re hosting, you may need to find specific items to help create the atmosphere that you want, or might need to bring things from one place to another. This could mean shopping, borrowing things, or simply gathering items together, but anything you can do to transform the space will make it obvious that you’ve put effort into this event.

Don’t overthink this part! With the pandemic, we’re all spending a lot of time in our private spaces already, so in making an effort to transform a familiar room, you’ll already make the whole event feel special and exciting. You don’t have to do (or spend) much to make an impact.

Extra blankets can help you make an ideal snuggling space on a piece of furniture, or turn an area on the floor into a cozy nest with pillows, rugs, throw blankets, or a thick comforter. Gather up everything soft that you can, or you can purchase some new items to freshen up the space. If your date is happening in a bedroom, this can be a thoughtful way to make a comfortable space separate from the bed.

Candles, either flameless or unscented, instantly make any room feel more beautiful. My favorite trick: tea lights in inexpensive holders can be a great way to transform a space with minimal money and effort. (Plus, most have a burn time of 2-6 hours, so if you wander into another room or get distracted, they’ll eventually safely burn out on their own.) If you want to include a favorite scented candle or two, that can be lovely, but don’t go overboard — you don’t want the fragrance to be too strong, especially if you’re in a small space or will be eating together. You can also use thin strands of battery-operated string lights to add a festive atmosphere.

Music makes a big impact, so consider queueing up a favorite album or two, making a playlist, or finding a ready–made music collection that sets the mood you’re going for. If you want to listen to a full album or two, dump them all into one master playlist and let it play through. And if you and your person love to dance, keep that in mind when you’re picking songs — include a few favorites that might encourage you both to get moving and get closer. I took the liberty of making a few different Spotify playlists that you can use: one with holiday instrumentals, one with sweet romantic favorites, and one for cranking up the heat.

Snacks and drinks are a nice touch, particularly if you can put together things that you know your person loves. Wine, cider, sangria, tea, hot chocolate, or mocktails are all great beverage options, and having frozen appetizers, cookies, chips, candies, popcorn, or other things to nibble on can make a simple and inviting spread. A cheese board can make an evening like this feel really special, plus it’s easy to put together ahead of time (or purchase pre-made from places like Whole Foods, FreshDirect, or Murray’s). If you want your date night to include dinner, consider takeout from a favorite local restaurant, or a meal that you can fully prepare in advance like pasta, soup, a sheet-pan dinner, or an InstantPot recipe. (This isn’t the time to try a new dish or go super fancy, unless you truly get pleasure from that idea! Choose something easy that won’t distract you from the most important part of the night: your date.)

Depending on what you’re including, you can set up a sweet little picnic on the floor, or you can set the table for more traditional dining. Do what makes sense here — lasagna might be tough for a picnic, but would make a great sit-down meal.

If you want to include a physical gift or two for your person, consider a gorgeous robe, luxe pajamas, comfortable slippers, a cozy blanket or throw, hot lingerie, a favorite candle, or that sex toy that they’ve had their eye on. Giving them something that goes with the vibe of the date is a lovely and thoughtful touch. And if it’s something that they can wear or use during the date, they’ll also remember how amazing you are every time they enjoy it in the future.

Lastly, consider any extra little touches that might make the space feel particularly special. If your person loves fresh flowers or a particular treat from a nearby bakery, pick some up! If you know they’ve been wanting to hear a new album from a favorite artist or watch the latest episode of a favorite show, have it queued up and ready to go. You know your partner best, and thoughtful details like this can go a long way.

two queers laugh together on a couch while watching a laptop screen

i can’t believe you put clips of all of my favorite queer standup comedians into one perfect youtube playlist!

Organize an activity or two

The point of the evening is to spend time with your person, but sometimes an activity can help you both relax and enjoy yourselves without the pressure to immediately bare your souls or run off to bed. Again, this doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive, but instead is about showing your person that you pay attention, that you know them, and that you care about spending time with them. Having a couple of options on hand means you get to choose whatever sounds fun in the moment, without having to scramble for ideas.

Play a card game or a board game. Rent one of their favorite films (consider something festive, something sexy, or a queer classic) and cuddle up. Read to each other. Go on a virtual museum tour, or watch a streaming Broadway musical. Plan a fantasy vacation or road trip. Color together. Put together a jigsaw puzzle. Grab your favorite oil or candle and give each other massages. Slow dance. Write each other personals ads. Tell stories, or write a story together. Make ice cream sundaes, cocktails, or mocktails. Play your favorite video games, and make bets for the winner. Have a singalong to your favorite album, movie, or musical. Read about your Venus signs. Look at old photos. Watch episodes of each others’ favorite television shows. Send each other sexts, or take thirst trap photos of each other. The sky is the limit, but focus on something that you’ll both enjoy, or something that your partner particularly loves to do.

If you like, there are also companies that put together date-night-in-a-box kits and subscriptions, giving you a collection of items and activities that you can use to create a special night together. I would still recommend doing some extra things to make your night more personalized for your partner, but this can be a great place to start if you’re feeling stuck.

Plan your outfit

It’s a date — so plan accordingly! You likely already know what your partner finds sexy on you, so wear something that makes you feel good, and something that you know (or suspect) they’ll love. Pajamas with a robe layered on top, cozy loungewear, your favorite lingerie, a comfortable favorite or something new — no matter what you choose, put together an outfit that gives you a kick of confidence.

And if in doubt, you can always pick up some canonically gay matching pajamas for you and your partner.

Set the mood

You’ve already gathered your supplies, so now it’s time to put it all together.

two white queers cuddle in bed, wrapped in string lights

babe i just don’t think string lights make functional restraints

Start with textiles. Arrange any pillows, cushions, blankets, rugs, or soft items into a cozy space, leaving plenty of options for snuggling and cuddling. Lay out the biggest pieces first, then arrange smaller items on top. Make it as inviting as possible.

Then set up the lighting and sound. Light candles and arrange them all around the room, and if it feels too dark, turn on a few small side lamps — I highly recommend avoiding overhead lighting for this, since you want the space to have a homey, flattering glow. If you like, it can be fun to play a crackling fire video on your television, computer, or tablet for some additional atmosphere (or, if you’re lucky enough to have an actual fireplace, light a fire). Get your music queued up, testing to make sure it’s loud enough to hear but soft enough for conversation.

Next, make sure your food and drinks are ready to go. Set out anything that you want to be immediately available, and make sure you have glasses, plates, napkins, or anything else that you’ll need to enjoy yourselves.

Lastly, get yourself ready! Put on that cozy, sexy outfit, spray your favorite perfume or cologne, and get excited for your evening together.

Enjoy yourself

Remember, this is a special night for you too! You’ve orchestrated a beautiful gift and have already taken care of everything, so now you can relax and enjoy spending time with your beloved. Be present with them, and have a great time together. You deserve it.

a candlelit room set up for holiday date night with a fireplace on the television, and throw blanket visible on the corner of the couch

my naturally dark living room, prepped and ready for holiday date night

coffee table loaded with snacks, drinks, sweets, and a cheese board for holiday date night

a light dinner spread with some of my girlfriend’s favorite cheeses, cookies, and snacks

view of the living room looking at the front of the couch along with my coffee table

alternate view of my couch stacked with blankets and pillows, and my coffee table covered in candles and snacks

view of the coffee table with half-eaten snacks and critical role playing on the television

partway through the date, cheese board partially demolished, critical role on the television. nailed it

Have you planned an evening like this for someone you love, or had a partner do something like this for you? I would absolutely love to hear all about it in the comments.

You Need Help: What If My Mom Hates My Girlfriend?

Q:

I’ve started dating this girl, and she’s actually very great. We’ve had frank discussions about needs and wants and dealbreakers, we have the same humour and she’s just as fun loving and spicy as I am while still being a functional adult. The plan is for me to meet her family at some point in the not-too-distant future. I’m excited, but here’s where it gets tricky:

We’re temporarily long-distance and I live next door to my parents. My mom was super abusive when I was a kid, to the point I moved out as soon as I turned sixteen. We’ve somewhat repaired this, and my parents have custody of my dogs, so you could describe our relationship as friendly but polite.

I introduced my ex to my folks because I was living with them at the time, and they loved her. Although my mom knows I’m now dating someone new, she’s asked no questions, which already isn’t a great sign. My ex was everything my folks like — polite, booksmart and agreeable. My new girlfriend is fantastic, but she’s not academic. I feel like my mom is going to hate that.

I want to introduce them because my mom can be nice and I have a fantastic relationship with my dad, but I don’t want my mom to say anything awful. And I absolutely will not tell my girlfriend that my mom may not like her because 1. That’ll hurt her feelings, 2. It could cause strain and 3. I like and value my girlfriend a hell of a lot more than my own mother.

I’m nervous because when my mom didn’t like my younger sister’s old boyfriend, she went so far as to orchestrate a breakup because he “wasn’t very bright” and didn’t “come from a good family,” and I am petrified.

Do I chat with my mom about boundaries? Do I only introduce my girlfriend to my dad? Do I not introduce her at all? Or am I overthinking it?

A:

You’re not overthinking! Of course you’re being thoughtful about if, when and how you’ll introduce your girlfriend to your family — given your mom’s previous actions, there’s a chance she won’t grant you and your girlfriend the respect your relationship deserves. You’re trying to protect your girlfriend from your mom’s objections, and you’re probably trying to protect yourself, too. You write that you’ve “somewhat repaired” your relationship with your mom after years of abuse, but even if your mom’s attitude and conduct had totally changed, abuse of any kind can have a lasting impact on your nervous system — it’s hard for your brain and body to forgive and forget, even if you’ve managed to rebuild trust with the person who hurt you.

But it sounds like you still don’t totally trust your mom, and why would you? You write that while your mom “can be nice,” she also espouses elitist values and even interfered in your sister’s relationship when your sister’s boyfriend didn’t meet your mom’s standards. Unpredictable behavior is a recipe for disappointment, so it makes sense that you’re trying to get out ahead of this.

It sounds like your girlfriend is excited for you to meet her family, but I’m not sure how she feels about meeting yours. Is it something that she wants to do? If you don’t know, ask!  Maybe meeting your parents isn’t important to girlfriend at all. If it is, then you’re going to have to practice setting boundaries with your girlfriend, with your mom, or both.

I don’t have all the details on this situation, so I can’t give you an exact blueprint for how to approach it. Instead, let’s go over your options and look at the pros and cons:

Option 1: You don’t introduce your girlfriend to your parents. Of course, since your parents live next door, there’s a chance your girlfriend would bump into them anyway when she’s visiting, so you’d have to be willing to take that risk. There’s also a chance that not introducing your girlfriend to your parents could hurt your parents’ feelings, but sometimes that happens when we set boundaries. If you ultimately decide that it would be best to keep your girlfriend and your parents in two separate worlds, that’s a valid choice, and it doesn’t mean that your relationship is any less important or meaningful. Our partners don’t have to be involved with our biological families. We don’t even have to be involved with our own biological families. Your girlfriend is dating you, not your parents, and if you give your girlfriend some background on your family dynamic, she’ll probably understand why she won’t be meeting your parents anytime soon.

Option 2: You only introduce your girlfriend to your dad. You write that you have a “fantastic” relationship with him, so it might feel good to let him in on this part of your life. You get the experience of introducing your girlfriend to your family without the messiness that your mom might bring to the table. If your dad is aware of the abuse your mom inflicted in the past and how she treated your sister’s boyfriend, he will probably understand why she can’t be involved. But unless your dad is willing to sneak around, you’re going to have to tell your mom about this arrangement, and she probably isn’t going to like it. Hopefully, your dad can also be part of that conversation and help you advocate for your needs.

Option 3: You introduce your girlfriend to your mom and dad after having a detailed conversation with your mom about acceptable vs. unacceptable behavior. And be specific! Unpredictable people need crystal clear boundaries (“Do not contact my girlfriend privately,” “Do not criticize my girlfriend’s background,” etc.) in order to be held accountable. Make sure your mom knows that if she violates those boundaries, she will not be interacting with your girlfriend (or you, if you’re in a position to go no-contact) any more. Make sure your dad and sister are aware of this conversation so they can help hold your mom accountable, too.

No matter which option you choose, I think you should be honest with your girlfriend about your past experiences with your mom. You don’t have to go into detail about the abuse from your past if that feels too painful, but if you want your girlfriend to be in your life long-term, it’s important to at least acknowledge that there’s been some strain there. We are not our parents, but childhood trauma can affect us long into adulthood. Talking to our partners how that trauma affects us leads to better communication (and fewer misunderstandings) in our romantic relationships. I know you’re worried about hurting your girlfriend’s feelings, but with the right framing, this conversation will probably bring you closer together. Telling your girlfriend, “My mom has been abusive and hyper-critical of others in the past, so I no longer value her opinions,” isn’t the same as saying, “You’re not good enough for my mom.”

Finally, I want to remind you that you don’t have to carry the impact of your mom’s past and present behavior alone. I hope you’re able to talk to your dad and sister about how they manage conflict with your mom, and if you don’t have a therapist who can help you set clear boundaries, I hope you’ll consider getting one. And remember that if your mom continues to cause turmoil and if you’re in a position where you can safely extricate yourself, you are not required to have your mom in your life. You can put your energy into the relationships that serve you instead.

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

You Need Help: I Don’t Want Kids But My Partner Might, Does This Mean We Can’t Get Married?

Q:

My partner and I have been together for about 2 years and we live together. Our relationship has grown stronger throughout this past year, even with everything going on in the world, and I feel our relationship progressing. I love her so much.

We’ve talked about getting married sometime in the next few years and have talked about getting engaged sometime later this year. However, when we’ve had conversations about what we want our marriage to look like, my partner says she doesn’t know if she wants kids or not. I’ve offered to give her time to figure that out and have encouraged her to explore that. She says she knows she doesn’t want them anytime in the next five years or so, but can’t know how she’ll feel beyond that. She says she doesn’t want to carry a child or raise a young child, but might want to adopt an older child at some point down the line. She also says she doesn’t think she needs more time to figure this out, and that she doesn’t think she’ll become much more certain on this for quite a while.

I feel very sure that I don’t want children. I know I don’t want them anytime soon, and I don’t know that I will ever change my mind on that. I know for sure that I never want to physically carry a child. I feel afraid of raising kids for a number of reasons related to my history with my own parents. Financially, I would like to live a certain lifestyle (lots of travel, going out to eat, being able to afford nice stuff, etc.) that I think would be more difficult to achieve if I had children.

I currently feel like I would want my partner to know whether or not she wants kids before I’d be comfortable getting married. Is it possible to ever really know how you’ll feel far into the future? I’m afraid of her deciding she does definitely want kids and then hoping I’ll change my mind, and then when I don’t, she’ll come to resent me and we’ll have to break up. Please help. Does this mean we shouldn’t get married anytime soon? I would appreciate any suggestions on how to have these conversations, and any advice on what things are necessary to be 100% percent on the same page on before you marry someone. Thank you!

A:

The very short answer to this question is easy: there is no way to guess the future and your current self cannot make promises for your future self. No one can say for certain if a choice you make today or tomorrow or a year from now will remain the right choice for forever. Arguably there is no such thing as the right choice and the wrong choice, there is simply the choice we make with the information we have available to us when we make it, and we do the best we can with what we have. If you don’t think you have enough information to know if you want to marry your partner or not yet, you simply do not have to get married yet. Problem solved!

But you bring up a lot of worries in your question, and also a lot of valid questions that I think we all ask ourselves when trying to build a life or even just spend some ongoing meaningful time with another human, so let’s dive into the slightly longer and less clear cut answers to those thoughts.

I think it’s very cool that you are thinking about major compatibility points when you think about planning for the future with your current partner. As we all know, no matter how much we love a person, simply being in love is not enough when it comes to legal and logistical choices like marriage, creating a family unit, and ultimately building a life together, whatever that may look like for you and your partner specifically (and if that’s something you’re both invested in doing). I think it’s great to make sure you don’t have major incompatibilities before considering marriage, and I think good communication in general is the key to sustaining a partnership that feels good for both people and doesn’t lead to resentment or anxiety on either side.

That said — there’s a difference between communicating about where you’re at and where you hope to be in the future and trying to control every aspect of your present and future life so that it all goes exactly according to plan. The first — communication! — is a vital and necessary tool in a healthy relationship. The second — control — is frankly impossible, and at best will lead to frustration and at worst may lead to the end of a perfectly lovely partnership.

I don’t know you and your partner, so I may be missing out on some nuances, but everything you’ve written in this letter actually tells me the two of you are pretty much on the same page when it comes to thoughts about raising kids right now. You do not want to have children, period. Your partner does not want kids for the next five years, does not want to carry a child, and may want to adopt an older child. She’s also indicated she doesn’t need more time to interrogate this and that how she feels about that is pretty much how she’s going to feel for a good long while: not entirely certain, but sure enough for the next five year period. So… you actually have your answer. Right now, your partner does not want kids. In five+ years she may or may not decide she wants to adopt. Right now, you do not want kids. In five+ years you will still not want kids. (We’ll come back to this in just a moment.) But if what you want is an ironclad 110% answer that your partner will never ever in a million years want to raise a child, you’re not going to get it, because she’s already communicated to you how she feels. She does not need more time to consider and explore; she actually sounds pretty certain, and it’s your job to respect that and make your decisions accordingly.

But let’s get back to that parenthetical — because you asked a good question in your submission, one that I think lies at the heart of your concerns: Is it possible to ever really know how you’ll feel far into the future? And the answer to that, tragically, is absolutely not. Is it likely to know how you’ll feel about pretty major choices? Sure. I am by no means suggesting that you should or will change your mind and suddenly realize you actually do want kids, and I am equally not suggesting that your partner will definitely change her mind and realize she absolutely never wants kids. I’m just saying… one or both of you could always change your mind. About anything! About everything! We all become different people over time. Growth means change and honestly, that’s beautiful. Our present day selves cannot make promises for our future selves. It is not possible to know beyond a shadow of a doubt how you’ll feel about something far into the future. That is both the magic and the hideous reality of being alive.

So what do you do? You make a decision with the information you currently have. I cannot make it for you. If I had more information I might tell you what I personally would do — for example if you’re in your early twenties I am biased against marrying that young and would tell you to wait a few years regardless of this particularly conversation because why not? — but I still wouldn’t be able to make the “right” choice for you because ultimately life is not a standardized test. You’re being very responsible by having big conversations about big choices (kids, marriage) but these are not conversations with a finite end point. Nothing you decide today will guarantee that you and your partner will always be on the exact same page, and nothing you choose to do will insure that your partner will never change her mind, or you will never change yours, or one or both of you will never grow to resent the other. That’s just part of it, the whole thing of building a life with someone. You keep growing. You keep changing. With any luck, your growth and change happen in ways that accommodate and support the other. You keep communicating, you keep having the conversations, you create an environment that breeds honesty and generosity and security and you hope those skills help keep the resentment at bay. And sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, you still change in ways that make you no longer compatible, if you ever were, and then you part ways. If you’re legally married that requires divorce papers; if you’re not it will still be an intense emotional split. But that’s just how it goes.

You asked for advice about how to have these conversations, and my answer is honestly and regularly. If you have trouble navigating the specifics or find yourselves getting trapped in a feedback loop or a negative cycle, it can be really helpful to attend a few couples counseling sessions just so have a neutral trained third party guide you and teach you new communication skills. I am a huge advocate of couples therapy for all relationships and I don’t think it’s ever a bad idea to learn better and more sustainable ways to be in partnership with another human. You also asked for advice on things that you must be 100% on the same page on before getting married, and for that I’d say you’re already on the right track, I would just approach it with broader strokes. Do you value the same things? Do you want the same kind of life? Is having kids a real true dealbreaker for you? If yes, okay — but if your current partner cannot promise she will never want a child, does not need more time to think about it, and is being honest that in five+ years down the line she may in fact say, “Hey, I do want a kid after all!” is it the sensible choice to end things now or could you stay together for a few more years and see how she feels when that comes up? What does she think about that? Does she have certain dealbreakers that you haven’t even considered because you’ve gotten so wrapped up in the potential child in your potential future? Is marriage even the ultimate thing you both want when you think about your continued time together on this earth?

I encourage you to parse out your dealbreakers together and speak with honesty and clarity as opposed to fear of current or future resentment. Together you will come to a clearer picture of what the present day version of you and your partner see for your individual and collective futures.

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

So You Wanna Have Sex With Me And My 3 Medical Devices?

The first time I had sex, I had a seizure 18 minutes into the whole shebang. Or he-bang, I guess. Two days later, I got my diagnosis: Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL). I was 23. That was the starting point, the point where I’d eventually get my first port catheter connected to my body at all times. Being self-conscious was my entire personality back then, wondering who around me might find me unattractive and why. The port under my skin felt like an obvious answer.

Because of the NHL, another condition — the one that had been kicking my ass since age 12 — started acting up. The other condition? Type 1 Diabetes, or, as we call it in the diabetic IG community, T1D. As a result, my health tanked and so did my social life. So I got an insulin pump, a device that would pump a continuous, precisely calibrated stream of insulin into my body at all times. It was supposed to give me more freedom, socially.

By the time I’d received my NHL diagnosis, my emotional grid had already taken a bootlick up the ass and then some. Adding an insulin pump to the grind of daily medications, doctors appointments, food and lifestyle balancing was…it was work, like when you’re pulling on your favorite pair of jeans, but you know it’s gonna take some wiggling and seven different yoga poses to get into them. The pump, shaped like a pager, had a thin, flexible plastic tube attached. One end of the tube went into the device, and the other would feed into a plastic catheter, which I would have to insert into my body once every 10 days.

For a while, I started clipping the pump to my pants and pretending it was an actual pager because at that point, ’90s fashion had reared its cute little head and was making its fated comeback. I walked down every street in LA like I had people in my life who’d “beep me.” No shame in my gotdamn game.

The insertion sites for the pump could vary, but with the amount of fatty tissue (not) on my unhealthy body at the time, choosing a site was difficult. It was abdomen, arm or thigh. The thigh was likely my best bet, but it made me feel weird to have the catheter so close to my pubic area. I wasn’t quite kinky enough for that just yet. Plus, remember those favorite painted-on jeans? How the hell was I supposed to make that shit work? My arm was fine, but it was difficult to settle the pump where it should go and it was hard to hide both the device and the insertion site. I thought if I could present an outward appearance of NormalTM, then maybe, eventually, I’d get there and even believe it myself.

I mention all this technical stuff to paint you a very clear picture. The NHL meant I underwent chemotherapy and had to wear a port catheter on my chest, somewhere just under the collar bone, under my skin. The first time I tried out sex with that thing attached, I spent more time answering his curious questions than he spent on foreplay. Needless to say, we didn’t work out. Let’s call him A.

When A touched me, I knew he was afraid of breaking me. His touch became the La Croix of touches, the badly executed ASMR of touches. He touched me like I was my disease. Word of advice to you, A: stop asking those science-type questions with both your mouth and your touch. Let the consent talk do its job and then understand that the specifics of my medical care are mine and mine alone. And also my oncologist’s. And my endocrinologist’s. But mostly mine, dude. If that port is going to limit me (or you, for that matter), I’ll let you know. More likely than not, any of us wearing a port and doing sex will give it to you straight up. After that, I got lucky. I met T.

T was patient with me. T was not overly serious or overly curious. He was not so fascinated by the — third and newly installed medical device to meet my body — Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) in my arm, not the port in my chest, nor the wireless insulin pump stuck to my abdomen.

That last one was new to my word, too. I’d been wearing insulin pumps with wires and buttons that might accidentally get pushed if I was pressed down too hard while my partner was hitting it from the back. This one has no wires and is about the size of a Tamagotchi. I still wear it now (the pump — not a Tamagotchi, unfortunately). So that’s one me, one T and three medical devices all sharing space in bed together.

The thing about T was not that he gave me some romancey line like “stop apologizing” that made me feel seen. It was the fact that I didn’t feel like I had to apologize for my physical limitations. I just was. I felt very comfortable with T before we’d even shared so much as the hard press of our lips together. Realistically, even with the three devices, sex was still possible and still good. Who knew!

And yeah, maybe the phone-sized remote that controlled my pump might beep to alert me to a change in insulin delivery. Or my actual phone might vibrate to tell me my glucose numbers were shifting or my port might pinch if I accidentally shifted it too hard in one direction. Maybe my lingerie clashed with amy one of those devices. Sometimes all of those things happened with T, and we adjusted, laughed together and switched positions. Or we stopped altogether because occasionally, vigorous sex can cause glucose to drop rapidly, which is dangerous and not a thing I fuck around with. If my numbers are dropping, get off me, bro. I mean, look. It is a form of exercise after all. It makes sense.

But after T, whom I still refer to as The One Who Got Away, I met N. That asshole. Had me trying too hard. He was angry about everyfuckingthing — having to stop, having the constantly beeping (which cannot be silenced or turned off) pump remote interrupt us from the bedside table, where I insisted it had to be. I suggested we fuck to music once to cover the beeping, and he shut down the idea. He said it was distracting. When he complained about being able to smell the insulin from my pump (pretty sure that was my deodorant, but ok), I suggested we light scented candles. He said they give people the wrong idea about romance. Loser had issues with the small stuff all the way up to the big stuff, like having to look at my quite-possibly-infected port site and drive me to the hospital after he finished (it turns out it was actually super infected, so. Whoops. My bad, N. Or whateva.)

To be frank, things with N didn’t end because of my medical hardware, my cancer or my diabetes. Things ended with N because actually it turned out he was married. So. But I assume things would’ve run their course eventually because I did do a lot of apologizing to him whenever we had sex. And that’s mostly because every woman and femme on some level has been taught to be measured.

Fear not. I met J after that. J was lovely and beautiful and so giving as a sex partner that it restored my faith in the act. See, I’m demisexual, and if you consider that I’ve had four sex partners of varying degrees in nine years, the time I spend teaching people about my diseases and how to share rewarding intimacy with me averages out. Still, it’s worth mentioning that the two times I’ve had good and healthy sexual experiences were with queers of color. There’s a dynamic there that I haven’t found anywhere else. Although the experience with J was short-lived. Geography wouldn’t allow for it. But, pretty easily, they stopped being a person I had sex with and instead became my platonic friend. My confidante. My family. And that’s been immeasurably valuable, too, to talk to them about how things are now that my body is, even with my medical devices, breaking down slowly but surely.

To J, to T — I have only this to say: So much of my daily energy goes to chronic pain now. And I hate it. But I know how to find moments of joy, an example of which is not accepting the bare minimum from my sexual partners when we are intimate. And that’s been such a wild ride with you both.

To the N’s of the world, listen and listen good: you will have to make allowances or wait for me. You will have to figure out how to conjure the concept of patience they taught you in grade school. You will take me as I am. There is no “or” being offered here, no more “love-adjacent-like,” as my best friends like to say. Nothing is perfect in my life, but at least I can say there’s no scent lingering in my figurative candle of sex-doubt. Just timid, twisting smoke where the flame was once ablaze.

What The Pandemic Taught Me About Healthy Queer Love

I sit on a plush beige couch as Walesca rustles through a bag of hair products. She sits behind me and weaves her fingers through my hair, separating flirty Black curls. Halfway through braiding blue box braids that stretch down my back, my scalp calls out for a break. Walesca starts heating a kettle of water and turns to ask, “Do you mind if a friend drops by to hang out?” I shrug, barely looking up from my endless scrolling and nod. “No problem, not like we’re going anywhere for a while.” A half hour later, Mickey walks through the door, and I can’t stop gawking. I am instantly in love with the way their tattoos kiss their left arm and tell you a secret, the small lisp that makes whatever they say sound endearing, the constellation of freckles that dance down their right cheek. We watch The Circle on Netflix as I steal small glimpses of them in my periphery. I drink in their aura and hold it close, hoping it won’t be the last time I can indulge.

Do you remember the first time you met a great love? In movies and TV shows, there’s always a dramatic meet-cute that sets the scene for the first encounter. Real life isn’t quite so scripted, but the first time I met Mickey, there was an undeniable electricity in the air around us — there was a force greater than us at work, watching us with glee.

The night of our first date, I change my outfit at least three times, only to return to the original option and leave my room looking like the Tazmanian devil made a guest appearance. I swipe on my favorite warm matte coco Fenty lipstick for a boost of confidence and down a shot of Casamigos for some courage. I stare at my reflection, carefully adorned with gold rings and my trusty Dr. Martens. I run my fingers through my blue braids one more time before I jut out the door and squeeze into my Uber. At least Mickey will get to see my braids in full action, rather than the work in progress they initially witnessed, I think to myself as the car wiggles its way down Atlantic Avenue. My fingers are anxious, itchy, searching for something. As a pleasure-seeking Taurus, first dates are a common ritual. But this one feels different.

There’s a certain shade of surrealism that marks the weeks leading up to the arrival of COVID-19 and the beginning of state-mandated quarantine. A nostalgic haze that hangs in my memory, reminding me of what was. Mickey and I reveled in the streets of Brooklyn, making out in crowded bars and cuddling to hide from the chill in February. As the honeymoon days of a budding love extended into weeks, I started to feel scared — scared of what this could turn into, a real love that would require me to show up, vulnerable and open. But the familiar lure of learned toxicity was just too convenient.

I started dating other people who were clearly more interested in lust than love. I ignored some of Mickey’s messages. I tried to poke holes and emphasize the things I didn’t like about Mickey. Years of a previous narcissistic relationship convinced me that being vulnerable left me open to manipulation and deceit. The person I gave my love to abused that gift, neglected it and allowed it to wilt. I mean, let’s face it: the American idea and application of love is faulty, spoiled rotten, twisted in the nightmares of capitalism and patriarchy. This is only amplified when it comes to narratives of queer Black love, for which representations are scarce and tragic. The Black queer community of Brooklyn is a prime place where this dichotomy reared its head — a space that has so much love to offer and simultaneously is limited by attachments to toxic masculinity, femme superiority and sexual domination. I believed that love wasn’t enough. Well, mostly believed.

I nuzzle in closer to the sweet spot between Mickey’s right arm and their chest. They smell of frankincense and shea butter, a scent I would return to as a reminder in the coming months. “I can’t believe you’re leaving,” I whisper in the groggy early morning hours leading up to their flight. They hug me closer, kissing the top of my forehead, “I’ll miss you, yene konjo, but I’ll be back before you know it,” they reassure me. I was not assured. It was the first week of the pandemic, and uncertainty was the name of the game.

And so the FaceTime dates began. We shared old family stories, nerded out on political theory and whispered sweet nothings. We talked and talked for hours on end, only interrupted by the necessity of sleep, yearning to be close to one another again. I couldn’t help but feel scared. Did I take for granted the time we spent together? Did I miss out on the opportunity for something real? It felt like the Universe was testing me to see if I was capable of change. Without the constant buzz of fuckbois, alcohol abuse and FOMO clouding my vision, it became painfully obvious how much genuine care I held for Mickey and the ways that they had been consistent in showing the same. It was time to get my shit together.

I lay on my back staring at the chipping paint flecks on my ceiling. I reach for my phone, and it blinks open to my bright home screen that reads 1:24 PM. A long sigh escapes my throat and I groan internally — there’s still so much time left in the day. I turn to my stomach and reach for my unopened copy of The Ethical Slut tucked in the bottom drawer of my nightstand. A few hours in and the book balances steady between my hands as I devour one chapter after the next. My right palm is smudged by the inked annotations scrawled along the margins. A zeal overtakes me as my brain begins to fire off ways I can incorporate healthy boundaries and agreements in my young relationship with Mickey. As if they heard me, my phone pings with an incoming text from them, flashing 4:44 PM on the screen. I chuckle to myself and eagerly begin texting them my reactions to the book. They meet my curiosity with encouragement and fodder that keeps us debating the ethics of non-monogamy till dusk. I feel nourished by this information, by the meaty frameworks that allow me to imagine a relationship born outside of the patriarchal holds of monogamy and its repercussions. A relationship co-created in Black queer liberation where love is a practice of self-care and community-care, where love is abundant and freely given without expectation.
A black, white and purple book cover features four black images of bodies with purple hearts. The title reads, "The Ethical Slut."
They say that everywhere you go, there you are — no truer words have been spoken throughout the course of the pandemic. Long stretches of uninterrupted time facilitated room to hear my own thoughts, parse through them and differentiate what is coming from me and what is coming from my pesky ego. Even the ever-bustling streets of New York City quieted themselves and left an expanse of silence in the absence of movement. This silence was healing, urgent, necessary. It offered me the clarity to address what hides behind my fear of intimacy. It provided room to admit that my beliefs of unworthiness stem from a complex history of emotional trauma. It gave me the space to offer compassion to my inner child, to forgive myself for not offering love to myself when I needed it most. And ultimately, it gave me permission to give that love to myself now and it gave me courage to allow others to love me as well. Falling in love with Mickey during the pandemic taught me that love is always going to be uncertain, because life is. Achieving certainty is not the point (it’s actually a losing bet). Establishing a loving trust with yourself is what will carry you through change.

I tie a pink scarf around my hair and apply my nighttime face cream. Mickey takes off their shirt, and I poke at the small dimples on their lower back. They squirm, giggling under my fingers before diving into bed. A year later and that sound still makes my heart sing. I crawl in and lean in close to kiss them goodnight. My lips hovering for a moment, we look at each other with a deep knowing that is familiar, sacred, ancient. I start crying, realizing that somewhere along the way, I let go of my fear to love. I chose — and continue to choose — to show up for love and all its uncertainty. We stare at each other, teary, unflinching, wide open.

Today, I understand that if someone lies to me or deceives me, it is not a reflection of my actions. More often than not, all it really means is that they have some real shit to work through. The only way I can receive honest and nourishing love is to offer it in return. In hindsight, my nerves before my first date with Mickey were telling me to slow down and trust my gut, to not only trust the love drunk stupor of our meet-cute, but to trust a person who consistently shows up, who can communicate with honesty and whose words match their actions.

So it turns out that love isn’t enough — not on its own. It calls on us to be brave, to look within the crevices of our hearts that whisper, “You are worthy of a healthy love.” Our ideals and values of love are learned from the ways we were loved or not loved and from the images and messages we receive about love from our environment and culture. To give a love that is healthy asks us to love ourselves first, to pour from a place of abundance. To live out a love that is healthy, queer and non-monogamous has been a source of deep personal transformation. What it has given me is timeless.

I dash into the bodega to pick up some tampons and run into Walesca standing in line. We greet each other and exchange small talk when she lovingly comments on an Instagram photo of Mickey and me. She jokingly adds that she wants to be invited to the wedding. I blush and nod with a huge grin, “Don’t worry, we are saving a special seat for you!”

You Need Help: Your Straight Partner Is a Great Ally – But His Parents Aren’t

Q:

I’m a pansexual gal in a relationship with a straight dude. My partner is 100% supportive of my queerness, and he’s an absolute delight. His parents, however… less of a delight! They have some rather backwards and gross opinions about the LGBTQ community. I’m currently closeted to them, and at the moment, it hasn’t made too much of a difference, as they live across the country and I see them very infrequently. However, this could change very soon. My partner is in the process of applying to grad schools, and there’s a good chance that we’ll be moving to the west coast, very close to his parents. We’ve even been talking about getting married. I think that he would be a great co-parent and life partner, but I’m not so sure that I want his parents to be my in-laws. The idea of them feeding those hateful ideas to my future kids makes me sick, and I don’t want to live my life in the closet to keep the peace. Do you think that an awesome relationship is worth saving if his family might make me miserable?

A:

I think this is unfortunately a really common problem, and I’m glad that you wrote in about it. As someone that spent 11 years married to a straight guy, I know how complicated it can be to navigate coming out to friends and family when you have a partner that hasn’t had to go through those same experiences themselves. It can feel complicated and isolating, and I just want to affirm that you are not alone in this experience, and that it’s absolutely possible to move through this with grace, support, and love.

Based on your note, it sounds like your relationship with your partner is supportive, is important to both of you, and holds space for your individual identity as a queer person. But there are some pieces that you left out that I want to address, because I think those missing bits may actually be part of the key to figuring out how best to navigate this. There are a few different angles that are worth considering, things that you should think about by yourself and things you should discuss further with your partner.

My first, most practical question for you is how aware your partner is about your level of discomfort around his parents. Is this something you talk about together regularly, or something you’ve felt that you had to hide? How does your partner feel about your parents’ opinions, and the ways that those opinions manifest in language and actions? Has he spoken to his parents to challenge their more harmful or hurtful beliefs? When his parents say something that causes you discomfort, do they push back, or stay silent? It sounds like you feel supported by your partner within the context of your relationship, but do you trust him to support you when it comes to conflict with his family? Does he take your concerns seriously, and value your comfort and safety?

Not being out around certain family members is absolutely a valid choice, and I completely understand wanting to protect both your privacy and your safety in this circumstance. When you don’t have to see people regularly, it can feel simpler to hide aspects of yourself, particularly when you feel certain that those people would not react positively to your truth. Yet I want to acknowledge your suffering in this instance, because staying in the closet can be draining and difficult — and in considering a move to be much closer to your partners’ parents, and potentially expanding your family together, I think it’s important for you to honor the weight of that decision. You absolutely do not have to come out to people that you don’t intend to have a close relationship with, but there will be a cost to that choice, and it’s important for both you and your partner to understand that.

Another thing that I want to ask about is how close your partner is to his parents. Do they talk every day, every week, every month, or a few times a year? Does your partner lean on them for advice and emotional support? Does your partner prefer to celebrate holidays or other regular events in person with his parents? Do your partners’ parents provide any financial support, either occasional or ongoing? Since you don’t mention how emotionally connected your partner is to his parents and family, it’s hard for me to know if moving to be close to them would mean that you would be in regular contact with them. But it sounds like you should think about what you would like your personal boundaries around your partner’s family to be, and to clearly identify what you would need from your partner in order to feel safe and supported moving forward.

The most important relationship for you in this situation is between you and your partner, but if your partner wants to have or maintain a close relationship with his parents, you may need to consider how that might impact you in the future. Are you comfortable with your partner still seeing his parents regularly? Is your partner comfortable spending time with his parents if you don’t attend? Particularly if you two are looking to expand your family, it will likely be important for you to be on the same page about your boundaries with this side of the family, and to begin upholding those boundaries before children enter the picture.

But now for the big part, the harder part, the underlying challenge at the heart of your note. Your last question has stayed with me, because it’s one that feels both easy and impossible to answer. You are in a relationship that you call awesome and supportive, but also write about your partners’ family in a way that makes me wonder how much support you can realistically count on. If you are expecting to be treated badly, to be miserable, to be forced to be in proximity to them, and to not have your partner standing up for you or supporting you in keeping your distance — that concerns me. Setting up boundaries around family members can be a complicated and painful thing, but doing so without the support of your partner will likely be even more difficult, and could potentially create some challenging situations for the two of you to navigate. Do you want to build a life with someone that isn’t willing or able to defend you, to choose you? I’m not saying that your partner has to completely cut off all contact with his parents — but I am saying that someone that isn’t willing to confront family about words or actions or opinions that they know are harming you is unfair to you, and will only cause more pain down the road.

It’s been said over and over on Autostraddle, but family is what you make of it — and I firmly believe that as queer people, we do not have to willingly subject ourselves to harm in order to protect the feelings of straight people who do not show us respect or consideration. You should not have to tolerate being treated badly by a loved one’s family. You should not have to worry about your future kids absorbing homophobic or hateful opinions from your in-laws. And you should not have to watch your partner sit quietly by while you deal with these issues alone.

So the real question is — are you alone, or not? Is your partner actually supporting you fully, even if that means stepping back from a close relationship with parents or family? What kinds of boundaries would make you feel safe and protected, and is your partner able to stand by your side and help you uphold them? Only you can decide if the potential pain of a difficult family is worth the joy of your relationship, but I would encourage you to consider how much support you are actually receiving, and if it will be enough moving forward.

Author’s Note 7/25/21: An original version of this post used incorrect pronouns and has since been corrected.

Dating a Librarian Is The Best Thing To Happen To My Bookshelves

Spaces & Places is a three-week series focusing on the private and community areas we occupy, the ways we personalize them, and the meanings that we assign to them. Organized and edited by Meg Jones Wall.

I thought it was going to be harder.

My girlfriend and I took a circuitous path to moving in together. After several months of long-distance, Kristen invited me out to Las Vegas where she’d received a writing fellowship. I flew to Orlando with two suitcases, and we drove across the country with her little dog and as much stuff as we could stuff into her car. In my grandparents’ unfinished basement in Virginia, I left behind most of my belongings—including all of my books minus my copy of Ducks, Newburyport, which I for some deranged reason thought would make a good road trip book. We didn’t need much in Vegas. We were only supposed to be there for a semester.

Then COVID-19 hit, and we ended up stuck in Vegas for a strange summer beyond her fellowship. Even before that though, I felt unmoored without my books. I’d never been away from them that long. When I lived in Los Angeles, I sublet a furnished room so small I had to keep my books in the trunk of my car. They rattled around as I drove, but at least they were close. In Vegas, I certainly wasn’t without books. We lived above an independent bookstore, and we filled the ladder-style bookcase in our loft before the pandemic even hit.

But I didn’t have the books that had become my north stars. My compendium of Annie Baker plays. My essential Dykes To Watch Out For. A very worn copy of Interpreter Of Maladies. My post-it-note-filled copy of Heartburn. A book on lesbian erotics in writing I found at a thrift store. And ones I didn’t even know meant so much to me until they weren’t around, like my copy of Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher from high school that’s bizarrely, obsessively dog-eared in multiple places by a past version of myself, including every single page that has the word “gay” on it.

It took another cross-country road trip, a couple months in a temporary place in Orlando, and several rounds of stressful pandemic apartment hunting before we found our first place to truly, for real, permanently move in together. We bought new things together for our apartment in Miami, and we moved my girlfriend’s things in, including her three classic, black Billy bookcases from IKEA and several boxes of her personal book collection. We got plants. I decorated the kitchen. The rooms filled and came to life. Those bookcases looked magnificent. But so many of my things were still nearly 1,000 miles away, including my books. I saw the crowded bookcases and projected too much onto them, an anxious thought prodding at me: Was there any room left for my things? For me?

Figuratively and literally, there was plenty of room for me in our life. Just because I didn’t have all my things moved in didn’t mean this space wasn’t as much mine as it was Kristen’s. We’d made decisions together. We’d built furniture together. In fact, our shared aesthetics (think: cozy and modern meets Florida kitsch?!) made the homemaking process rather seamless.

And yet, I was all worked up over the books. I’d never dated another writer before or anyone with an extensive book collection for that matter. I thought it would be hard if not outright impossible to merge my books with my girlfriend’s. The three bookcases were nearly full. Would mine have to stay partially stowed away in boxes? Even if we found the space, what would it look like to bring our books together? Did they need to be separate like our closets? I know a couple that keeps permanently separate bookshelves. I don’t judge them for it, but it wasn’t what I wanted. Writing and books feel like a significant part of this relationship, and I know it’s important to have divisions and individualism within relationships, but I also couldn’t imagine drawing these hard lines. My books, your books. It’s not like I want to claim anything of hers for myself. I just want our books to be able to live together, like us. Books peacefully cohabitating, smashed together on shelves. It sounded genuinely intimate: our books, touching.

I guess it’s what Kristen wanted, too, because separate shelves were never even suggested. We were once again on the same page.

The tension, instead, came later.

My girlfriend was more than happy to conjoin our books, but she had some rules. She is, after all, a librarian. I anticipated we’d have some sort of shelving system, which I’d admittedly never really had or been able to stick to in the past. I was game though, ready to be more mature and sophisticated in my bookshelf tendencies rather than just indiscriminately throwing books where they fit.

My mother drove down from Virginia with my books and the rest of my belongings I’d been without for over a year. With some Facebook marketplace luck and an assist from my mom’s SUV, we got a fourth Billy bookcase to match the others. A very commanding and nosey Leo, my mother insisted upon assisting with organizing our books. Thus sparked the first tricky step of merging bookshelves: dealing with my bossy mother. The pandemic meant, for better or worse, we hadn’t had to deal with a lot of family stuff in our immediate space for much of our relationship. Kristen took my mother’s forwardness in stride though. I knew she loved me when I saw how chill she was about my mom throwing our books wildly around our living room.

When my mother suggested we organize our books by color or at least have “one designated red shelf,” I was nothing short of horrified. I’ve of course seen the color blocking books trend on Instagram and in some of my friend’s homes, but it makes no fucking sense to me, and I was quick to say so while also taking it a step further to call it stupid. My mother proceeded to organize by genre per my instructions but didn’t relent entirely. She still threw a random shelf in the middle of one of the bookcases just for red covers, regardless of genre. It was easier to just let her do it and fix it after she left.

When Kristen and I disbanded the red books and reallocated them to their respective shelves, I made more fun of my mother and, by extension, anyone who sorts books by color. I expected agreement, but Kristen offered something else. She said the color system probably works for my mother, a very visual and aesthetic-driven person who is more likely to remember what a book looks like than the first and last name of who wrote it. It works for other people, too. There’s no one right way to shelve, she told me. From her, I’ve learned that so much of library work responds to the specific needs of the community. If a color system makes the most sense to my mother, that’s all that matters.

After all, I’ve come to realize even our system isn’t perfectly straightforward. It goes something like this:
There are two bookcases in the living room. The one on the right houses novels sorted by author last name, A-R. On the left, the first two shelves contain poetry unsorted by name. The next two shelves contain unsorted short fiction. The fifth shelf is the Stephen King shelf. The bottom shelf continues with novels by authors with S-W names. In the office, two more bookcases. On the right, you’ll find Kristen’s extensive V.C. Andrews collection, classics, a shelf for graphic narrative and YA, plays, and vintage books. On the left, the fourth bookcase we added to the mix starts with four shelves of unsorted nonfiction we’ve been meaning to sort loosely into subgenres (memoir, essays, reference/history, theory, craft). We’ll get to it one day (I keep saying to myself). The second-to-last shelf finishes out the novels by authors with W-Z names. The bottom shelf is an odd pairing of books Kristen used for her thesis on Flannery O’Connor and a stack of my journals.

Novels by author name A-R

Novels by author name A-R

Poetry, short fiction, Stephen King, novels by author name S-W

Poetry, short fiction, Stephen King, novels by author name S-W

It sounds topsy-turvy on paper. Why do our novels break in such nonlinear ways? Why does modern YA live among the classics—the spine aesthetics of those respective groups strikingly discordant? Why organize novels by last name but not short fiction? None of these questions really matter if this much is true: We both can locate books without having to scan shelves for longer than a few seconds. Everything has its place. The system works for us, because it is ours.

Each bookcase is also a home of its own. Aside from the books they hold, each has its own decor, too. Plants sit atop the bookcases in the living room, while the office bookcases hold miscellaneous things meaningful to each of us: some goofy like Kristen’s 7-Eleven novelty clock and my childhood softball trophy from 1999, some sentimental like bowls woven by my cousin in India and gifts from Kristen’s friends. Decorative pennants from one of my best friends adorn the office bookcases, and an unlit, massive flamingo candle gifted to Kristen for her book launch is perched on one, too, its coloring slightly faded by the Miami sun. A dried rose from the rainbow bouquet I sent her on the same occasion rests on a bookcase amid taxidermy, embroidery, miniature owl figurines, postcards, and costume glasses I got at a junk shop in Venice beach when I was probably 13. It’s a collage made of both of us.

V.C. Andrews, classics, graphic narrative, YA

V.C. Andrews, classics, graphic narrative, YA

Nonfiction, novels by author name W-Z, Flannery O'Connor, journals

Nonfiction, novels by author name W-Z, Flannery O’Connor, journals

So we got all our books on the shelves with minimal conflict. But my library lessons weren’t over. In the coming weeks, a new challenge arose. The bookcases were filling up. Shelf space was dwindling. Our short fiction shelves became so packed it was difficult to actually pull a book out. But shelf scarcity didn’t seem to faze Kristen. She calmly explained we would just have to get rid of some books to make room for new ones.

I did not calmly respond to this. I cried.

We were both surprised by my reaction. We didn’t have a full-on fight, but it was fraught. We simply weren’t on the same page. I thought Kristen was asking me to make sacrifices. We all have relationship baggage, and one of the various dilapidated suitcases hauled in from my relationship history contains imbalanced sacrifices masked as compromises. I like to compromise in relationships, but that’s sometimes at odds with my history of letting partners bulldoze over my wants and needs. In recent years, I’ve learned the line between being easy-going and being a pushover.

She wasn’t asking me to dump a bunch of my beloved books in the garbage. She especially wasn’t suggesting my books had to go while hers could stay. First of all, the books would be donated. But also, if I wanted to keep every one of my books on the shelf, I could. She didn’t want me to get rid of anything that mattered to me. But I needed to understand space on our bookcases was finite, something I was clearly in denial about. If more books were coming in, some would have to go. Kristen, with her library brain, constantly reassesses which books she actually needs to keep and which she can send to a friend or donate. If you know you’re never going to read a book again, why hold onto it?

It’s a very simple lesson. But it cracked something open for me. Books can be replaced. Parting ways with them just means re-homing them. There’s no reason we need multiple copies of the same damn book. Bookshelves might have finite space, but they aren’t fixed, not really. They’re dynamic, evolving spaces. They’re homes. Expanding a book collection also requires culling. When we add new books, we shift the shelves. Room can always be made for the things we love. There will always, always be space for me in our home.

When it came to combining our books, I’d been the one nervous about problems, but I was the problem. I erroneously assumed Kristen would be more difficult. She’s the librarian! She must have so many rigid ideas about how books are organized and displayed! I should have known better. Ever since the early days of our relationship when she still wrote a column on libraries, I’ve learned that a lot of what I previously thought about libraries was wrong. If anything, being a librarian makes her more fluid and unpretentious when it comes to books and how to arrange them. She knows how to adapt to the needs of the community which, in this case, looks like our shared home. Our books, like our lives, can mesh in ways that might not make complete logical sense from the outside. So long as it makes sense to us.

Is It My Partner’s Mental Illness Affecting Our Relationship – Or Abuse?

A few years ago, a long term relationship I was in ended, suddenly and painfully. Nearly a year later, I’d found out that my former partner had cheated on me for at least the last five months of our relationship, relying on me for emotional support as his mother was dying while simultaneously lovebombing and creating an entire new fantasy world to disappear into with somebody new. At the same time as he was texting me that it felt like there was a “hole in his heart where I should be,” he was also going on fabulous international vacations with her, convincing her to move entire countries so that they could be together. The revelation shocked me. I spent almost that entire year afterwards going over and over the relationship in my mind, talking to my friends, and also talking to my therapist. Both of us were stunned about the way the relationship ended, the betrayal of my trust, and the flagrant disregard for my sexual health.

While processing the end of the relationship, a friend of mine suggested idly that my ex sounded like a narcissist, and when I talked to my therapist about this, he confirmed that some of the behavior sounded more to him like it could potentially land somewhere on the spectrum of anti-social personality. This was jarring to me, and I quickly fell down the rabbit hole of seemingly well-meaning Instagram graphics and Quora posts about mental health, personality disorders, and relationships.

As all of this was happening, I was also finishing up my last semester of grad school, getting my Masters in clinical social work. I was interning in a psychotherapy clinic, studying cognitive behavioral therapy, and being supervised weekly. Almost everyone who surrounded me was a therapist, or in training to become one. It became clear to me that the ways in which we talk about personality disorders in grad school and as professional therapists, and the types of information I was encountering online, were vastly different.

Personality disorders, perhaps more than any other diagnosis, are captivating to pop culture. You see it in the popularity of movies like Sybil (which is supposedly about what is now known as dissociative identity disorder) and the fervor they generate in the public mind. In pop culture, personality disorders tend to be highly dramatized, almost fantastical in nature. Anti-social personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder (three of the four Cluster B personality disorders) are perhaps the most well-known among them, and the communities that pop up online tend to reflect this cinematic pop psychology understanding of them, which is damaging and stigmatizing to folks who actually live with these diagnoses. In self-help books aimed at assisting laypeople in recognizing these characteristics, people with personality disorders are often lumped into the sensational category of emotional, psychological, or energetic “vampires,” though Healthline is quick to point out that this framework of personality disorders as “inherently evil and incapable of change…don’t do justice [to their] complexity.”

It’s not hard to see why characterizing personality disorders in this way is compelling: Often, these spaces seem to be curated by folks who have survived abuse from “narcs.” The narratives tend to be extremely polarizing – an us vs. them approach that reiterates, again and again, that if you suspect you are in a relationship with someone with a personality disorder, you should run. These narratives are replete with the black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking that, ironically, often presents in folks with diagnoses like borderline personality disorder; the world is divided into the narcs/abusers and the empaths, who are positioned as perfect angels haplessly taken advantage of, time and time again.

I’ll admit that, in the most painful moments of trying to reconcile the end of this relationship and the betrayal for which I was afforded no opportunity for closure, this positioning was appealing. It made my ex all bad, and allowed me to remain blameless. Yet for the most part, it still didn’t sit right with me. Instead I turned to books, and learned that characteristics like narcissism and empathy – like most qualities we contain – exist along a spectrum. In fact, in Rethinking Narcissism, Dr. Craig Malkin explains the nuance in this spectrum – some narcissism is healthy and protective, and too much empathy (and lack of boundaries) can actually be quite problematic, codependent, and also lead to toxic patterns in relationships, something I learned the hard way, again, when the relationship that followed this one contained similar dynamics.

These patterns prompted me to shift my focus toward my own healing, and to prioritize a compassionate and non-judgmental but incisive look at the role I played in relationships: my willingness to look past the red flags that showed themselves early on, my commitment to ignoring my intuition and the somatic cues from my body that were trying to let me know that, regardless of whether or not these partners met whatever criteria in the DSM-5, there was something off in the relationships that required my attention.

Here are some of the things I learned:

It’s Not Your Job to Diagnose Your Partner

Unless you’re a trained clinician, it’s not your job to diagnose your partner. Even if you are a trained clinician, you’re not equipped to diagnose someone with whom you’re in a personal relationship. It’s not only unethical, but it also can’t be done: Diagnosis is a tricky art form, and even now, after two years of school, and two years of clinical practice, it’s still something that makes me vaguely uncomfortable when I try to do it.

Instead of focusing on whether or not someone your dating might fit the criteria for some kind of diagnosis, pay attention to your experience of the relationship. Some helpful questions might include:

  • Does this person treat you with respect? Do you share similar values?
  • Do you feel safe with them? (Do you know what safety feels like in your own body?)
  • Is there reciprocity in your relationship – are you curious about each other, supportive of each other? Do you make each other laugh?
  • Are they someone you can trust when you’re feeling low, or when you’re in a crisis?
  • Are you comfortable with them, or do you feel like you have to perform in some way? What type of performance do you find yourself taking on?
  • Do they respect your boundaries, or do you find yourself having to assert them again and again? Can you speak openly with them, or do you hold yourself back, afraid to speak your mind fully?
  • How do you handle disagreements and arguments in your relationship? What shape does anger take between you?
  • How do you each apologize, and what does accountability look like between you? Do apologies result in changed behavior?
  • What processes do you each have for repairing a rupture and comforting each other after difficult conversations? Do you feel as though you can return to previous disagreements even after some time has passed, if you still have things you need to communicate with them?

Personality Disorders Are Often Related to Trauma

In my practice, I’m hesitant to diagnose, unless it’s something that a client specifically asks of me. Even then, it’s something that I work on collaboratively with my clients – I ask them what their views are on diagnosis, and what diagnoses they’ve learned about that resonate with them. I let them know, if they aren’t already aware, about the stigma associated with personality disorders, and we work out what that means for our work together in terms of paperwork. Some people are uncomfortable with the idea of having a paper trail that includes a stigmatized diagnosis in their medical record, because even among therapists and other mental health professionals – as well as some doctors – folks with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, for example, experience discrimination, often compounded by other axes of marginalization such as race, gender, class, and disability.

What I find most often is that the symptoms of borderline personality are also highly reminiscent of the markers of trauma – intense mood swings, all-or-nothing thinking, patterns of self-harm or suicidal ideations, struggles around substance use and food, highly unstable relationships, difficulty controlling anger and anxiety, grandiose thinking, and deep, deep self-loathing. From a strengths-based perspective, I often explore with clients the ways in which these patterns emerged, primarily, as an attempt to keep clients safe in childhood while they tried to navigate unpredictable, chaotic, or violent environments. Even behaviors in relationships that could be manipulative or emotionally abusive are often made in response to frightening out-of-control feelings and an intense, desperate desire for safety. When I work with clients, we work on understanding the feelings, the context and history of the feelings, and the ways in which they relate to clients’ behaviors – as well as how these behaviors impact clients’ friends, family members and partners. Particularly useful is the DBT Skills Workbook. DBT is a form of therapy that was created by Marsha Linehan specifically to work with clients with borderline personality disorder, to help them tolerate and regulate their intense and scary feelings. The beautiful thing about the DBT Skills Workbook, though, is that anyone can use it – and it can be helpful for pretty much anyone.

I think it’s a good idea for everyone to take a trauma informed approach to their relationships. If you’re dating, and you’re in therapy, and you consider yourself pretty on top of your shit emotionally, it’s a good idea to ask yourself what it means to be trauma informed both for yourself, and also in terms of your partners.

Some questions to consider:

  • How much do you know about trauma and the body?
  • How comfortable are you talking about things like recognizing a partner’s triggers, and having conversations around how you can be supportive of them if they’re activated?
  • Do you feel okay hearing that what someone might need in that situation is to be left alone – or would you receive that as a rejection?
  • What do your boundaries – both interpersonally, but also your own internal boundaries and self-regulation – look like, and how does your prior history (in terms of romantic relationships, but also in terms of your upbringing and attachment history) get poked in current romantic relationships?
  • How might you grow into a more trauma informed partner?

I am not the type to believe that we need to be completely healed before we enter into loving relationships – in fact, I think that when we work towards building healthy, reciprocal, and respectful relationships, we are simultaneously actively healing. Still, there are some patterns of behavior that – all diagnoses aside – can make relationships difficult if not harmful. If, for example, your partner is constantly checking in on you, doesn’t trust you to the point of you feeling as though you need to alter your own behavior (not seeing friends, not wearing what you want to wear), or if you find that threats of self-harm or suicide being used as a means of controlling the outcome of disagreements and conflict, I would recommend taking some time to pause and consider how these patterns impact your own mental health, and what you want your boundaries to be around such behavior.

These patterns, I also want to note, have less to do with a personality disorder diagnosis (they can show up in extreme anxious attachment styles or in folks who struggle deeply with codependency, for example). More important is to consider your partner’s awareness around these behaviors, what efforts they are making to communicate more healthily, and whether or not it is sustainable for you to be in a relationship where these patterns are present.

It’s Not Your Job To Heal Your Partner

People with personality disorders – especially borderline personality disorder – get an extremely bad rap online. It’s dangerous to conflate harm in relationships with personality disorders – so many other factors contribute to how we experience relationships, both as people who experience harm, and as people who harm others. None of us is perfect, and all of us deserve kindness, compassion, and patience. After all, no one teaches us how to be in relationship with each other, and we have very few models of what healthy relationships look like. We’re all living in the same toxic stew of cissexist, white supremacist, heteronormative patriarchy, and these systems have shaped the way we relate to each other – even those of us who have put in a lot of work for years trying to unlearn them.

That said, you deserve to feel safe and be treated with dignity, respect, and kindness in your relationships. Regardless of who you’re with, if you notice yourself feeling anxious, nervous, afraid, consistently confused; if you’re afraid to speak up, afraid to disagree; if you’re not telling your friends about your relationship because you want to protect the image they (and you) have about your partner – all of these are red flags. They happen in relationships with folks who have personality disorder diagnoses, and they happen in relationships with folks who don’t. They happen in relationships with folks who have trauma histories, and they happen in relationships with folks who don’t.

You are not responsible for your partner’s healing.

The only person’s healing you have control over… is your own.

Regardless of who you’re dating, one thing is clear: Relationships require us to know ourselves, deeply and well. To know what our values are, and how to stick to them. To know what our boundaries are, and practice speaking and holding them, firmly and with compassion. If you feel like a relationship is taking you away from yourself, if it’s making you sad and anxious, if it makes you doubt yourself… that information is more important than any diagnosis ever could be. Your first and most important relationship is the one you have with yourself, and your diagnostic criteria for staying or going is whether you are acting in integrity with yourself. Let that be your guide.

You Need Help: Why Am I So Apprehensive and Anxious About Sex?

Q:

I have been out for over a decade but haven’t had a serious relationship until now, in my 30s. I adore my partner, I can’t imagine not being with her and I am so attracted to her in every way. At the same time, being with her has highlighted some stuff. Even at the beginning of our relationship when we were having crazy sex every time we saw each other I noticed I was always nervous before, full of apprehension all day, and totally in my head throughout. Now that we are in a bit of a routine I think she’s noticed that something about the way I approach sex isn’t entirely relaxed. Even though the sex is great, I still find it really hard to just let go and be present in it, making it hard to cum. I’m always thinking about whether we will or won’t have sex that night, and when we have sex I’m thinking about when it will end. My partner is incredible and has said that we can try anything or nothing and we can talk about it, but how do I start talking about it/ exploring it when I don’t understand what the problem is? I want her to be happy, and I’m worried she’ll feel as though it’s something to do with her, when in reality this has always been the way I think about sex.

A:

You’re correct that it’s difficult to know how to work on and talk about sexual hangups when they remain somewhat nebulous and you haven’t figured out what you’re feeling yet. At the same time, sex and our relationships to it are really complicated. Sometimes it’s really, really hard to figure out where certain feelings and discomforts stem from. And that’s okay! I’m hoping my advice can both help you figure out some answers about your own relationship to sex but also help you in the moments where you still might not have all the answers.

I think it’s really great that you have such a loving and supportive partner. I think it’s great that you want her to be happy and that she is not putting any pressure on you. All that said, now I want you to try to think about these things as being separate from your partner. You say so yourself that you’re worried that she’ll feel as though it has something to do with her. And you know that it has nothing to do with her and that you’ve always had these feelings about sex. So grant yourself the permission to center yourself instead of thinking of all this in terms of how your partner might feel or react. This is about you. Centering yourself does not exclude or negate your partner. Rather, it allows you to better focus on your feelings, their roots, and what you want and need when it comes to sex and boundaries. You want your partner to be happy, but you should want happiness for yourself, too. I can tell you right now that you probably won’t be able to get any closer to unpacking some of your sexual baggage (which, btw, most people have!) if you’re constantly thinking about this in terms of another person.

On that note: Find someone to talk to who isn’t your partner. I think it’s great that she says you can talk to her! You can take her up on that from time to time. But I also think it’s important for you to find someone who you can talk to about sex who you are not having sex with. If therapy is an option for you, then that could be a place to start. There are therapists who specialize specifically in sex. If therapy is not an option, do you have any close friends who you could open up to about things? Talking to someone who you are not in a sexual relationship with helps remove sex from the conversation about sex, which can give you some more clarity and space to explore yourself. If you’re not ready to talk to anyone at all, then journaling can be an option. I just think you need an outlet for exploration that is not tethered directly to your partner.

Practicing mindfulness (with meditation exercises, apps, workbooks, etc) can also help here. Along with journaling and attempting to name your feelings as you feel them (whether to yourself or to your partner), mindfulness can help us unlock the things we feel about our bodies, touch, desire, etc. Masturbation can also help here!

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to figure everything out all at once. Don’t feel like the solution to figuring stuff out is to just have sex when you’re not really feeling it. If you’re having hesitations, sit with them instead of ignoring them. What would make you feel safer? Pay attention to your body in these moments. Are you holding tension? If you’re feeling anxiety, where do you physically feel it?

You (and your relationship!) will thrive if you’re patient and kind with yourself. Be honest with your partner and lean on her when that feels like the right thing to do, but also prioritize yourself and keep in mind that you should have other systems of support outside of her.

For more advice and also just to know that you’re not alone in having complicated feelings about sex, check out these previous You Need Helps by Kaelyn and Carolyn and other AS writing on sex:

The Happiest Place On Earth

Some names in the essay have been changed.

This post was originally written in 2017 and republished in 2021

A graphic image of two women's arms holding hands against an ocean-like backdrop

Illustration by Sarah Sarwar

It was Christmas Day and we were somewhere between New Mexico and Arizona. I sat in the backseat of my family’s gold Expedition staring out the window at the winter desert. I’d thought once the semester was over, this whole mess would dissipate and I’d be able to breathe. I’d kept telling myself just make it to December — once you’re with your family, everything will be ok. But it was December and I was in a car with my family on our way to Disneyland and I still felt a heaviness in my chest. My dad was driving, my mom was dozing off, my sister was fast asleep on her neck pillow and my brother was fidgeting with his iPod; I was grateful to get away.

Instead of doing the whole Christmas thing — lights, tree, festivities, presents — my family decided to put that money into a Disneyland vacation. Ever since I can remember, it’s been a tradition to watch the Disney Christmas Day Parade on Christmas morning while we opened gifts, drank hot chocolate and ate tamales. The parade is absolutely cheerful with celebrity performances of pop-infused Christmas classics, dancing gingerbread men and candy canes, and Mickey and Minnie dressed in holiday apparel. My sister had never been to any Disney parks and wanted to experience the holiday magic we watch every year at home. My siblings and I weren’t little kids anymore — Yvette was almost 30, I’d just turned 20 and J.J. was 17 — so maybe it was nostalgia that influenced us to ditch our traditional plans. We were busy growing up and rarely had more than a weekend with each other, so why not take a trip to spend time with each other.

My parents couldn’t afford flights for all of us, so they opted to drive to California — to enjoy the scenery and each other’s company for a solid 23 hours in a moving vehicle. Yvette ran with it and made our trip as dorky as possible, complete with custom-made green shirts for each of us that featured a Christmas tree on top of a station wagon with the words “Marquez Family Christmas 2010,” and on the back, “Disney or Bust!”

We left South Texas on Christmas Eve, making our slow crawl out of Texas. We drove for 13 hours before we stopped for the night in El Paso. The next day, for the first time in my life, Christmas morning wouldn’t be celebrated in my childhood home with the same smells and the same warmth. J.J. wouldn’t excitedly wake Yvette and I in our room so we could unwrap the treasures underneath the Christmas tree that my dad had carefully decorated with trinkets and ornaments we made in elementary school. I wouldn’t eat my mom’s tamales or sip hot chocolate with a mountain of melting marshmallows. We wouldn’t watch the Disney Christmas Day Parade.

Christmas was put on pause for the day since we needed to hit the road before the sun came up to get to the happiest place on earth on time. As we put miles behind us on the grey, cloudy day, Christmas songs played on every single available radio station. It was cute for the first 30 minutes. Have yourself a merry little Christmas… Let your heart be light… From now on your troubles will be out of sight. Sleigh bells and carols rang in my ears on a loop. It was maddening. My dad gave up and put in the only CD in the car, Selena’s top hits. I was grateful for a longer respite when we stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast, and then again for lunch because it was the only restaurant open for miles.

When we got back on the road, even though I was wearing my coziest sweatpants and college sweatshirt and had a travel blanket on me, I felt cold in the car. My Blackberry felt like a brick on my lap, adding a pound every time it lit up, so I tried hiding it in the seat pocket in front of me. I had 20 text messages from Elena.

i just want you back.

i want to visit you in austin like i did last year, and know that i belong to you.

i miss you soo much.

i wish you could feel the way i do. i know you can.

there has to be some part of you that loves me like i love you.

I’d avoided her messages all semester long, dodging her questions, but that only made things worse.

Elena, I’m with my family. I can’t talk right now. It’s Christmas, you should enjoy your family while you can.

In September I called Elena one night to let her know I’d crossed a line, but I didn’t tell her which line. I was in my dorm room, alone and in the dark too ashamed to speak the truth. I said I’d only kissed Gloria but that wasn’t the entire truth. Elena was more than a thousand miles away in her own dorm room and she believed me and said it was ok, that it was a mistake.

She knew Gloria. They’d met a few months earlier when Elena visited me in Austin during Easter break. I showed her my favorite places to eat in my new city, the coolest boutique shops near campus, introduced her to my new friends, including Gloria, who I spent most of my time with. Elena didn’t understand why I was crying; Gloria and I didn’t really mean it, we were only joking, right?

I couldn’t tell her that I liked kissing and fucking another girl who wasn’t her, that I had feelings for Gloria. I was too selfish. But if I had told her, at least it would’ve been the end. I wouldn’t have kept her tethered to false hope that we could still fix us.

Elena was my best friend in high school. My junior year we flirted with each other for months, tension building until we finally kissed in my bedroom one Friday night. We knew what we wanted even though we didn’t know how to talk about it or name it. I told myself over and over it wasn’t girls that I liked, just her. From that night on, our “friendship” intensified. We didn’t talk about it to anyone. We kept each other a secret.

We gave each other looks that said follow me into the band hall bathroom, no one’s there after 5 pm practice. I pressed her against the yellow-tiled wall and wanted to breathe all of her in. We held hands underneath cafeteria tables like it wasn’t so obvious to our friends. She wrote me notes in class and gave them to me while we passed each other in the hallways. I can’t wait to see you later. After the movies and Denny’s, I would put my foot on the brake for a brief stop at the unlit cul de sac on her street to kiss her goodbye instead of risking it in front of her house. She would come over to my house to study for AP environmental science and I locked the door behind me every time. We rented movies we never watched. I thought of her when I listened to that one song on the Juno soundtrack. I kiss you all starry eyed, my body’s swinging from side to side / I don’t see what anyone can see / In anyone else but you.

When I moved a few hours away for college while she was finishing her senior year of high school, I Facebook messaged her how much I missed her. We were long distance but I didn’t care, she still gave me butterflies. When she visited me during Easter break, I was a little braver, a little bolder, and held her hand in public at the bus stop. But I was still afraid. I was only out to Gloria, so I introduced Elena as my friend to my other college friends. By the time summer rolled around, we had been together for more than two years and still kept each other a secret, lying through our teeth to our families, hiding our affection, isolating ourselves and our feelings.

We went to the beach that summer, before we both left for college. She was moving to the East coast for her freshman year and I was going back to Austin. I was so proud of her for getting into a stellar school with scholarships and for getting the fuck out of our hometown. I wanted her to be free; I wanted us both to be free.

I held her hand underneath the ocean surface so not even the seagulls could see our fingers intertwined. I felt invincible as the waves hit us.

Gloria and I met through a program that helps freshmen navigate a giant university like UT and teams them up with other first-year students with similar interests and majors. It was a pure coincidence that we lived down the hall from each other in the same dorm. We studied for tests together and ate dinner together on most nights.

On the weekends, instead of partying and drinking like the vast majority of our classmates, we walked to the Blockbuster down the street to rent a movie and pile a bunch of blankets on the floor of Gloria’s dorm to watch it. We talked for hours after the credits rolled.

Gloria was the first person I chose to come out to. I trusted her not to turn me away, and I was right.

We kept in touch over the summer. She sent me a gold-foiled journal with an illustration of a woman crying on the front of it with colorful birds on her head like a crown and a bag of M&M’s, my favorite candy. She wrote me a letter and said they were presents for my half birthday. “I am really glad we met and became friends. So thank you for opening your world to me and I hope you have felt that I’ve done the same,” she scrawled on a piece of computer paper.

When we came back for our sophomore year, the magnetism between us was undeniable. After drinking with friends one night to celebrate the start of the new semester, we held hands while I slept in her bed. I squeezed her hand as I pretended to fall asleep and she stroked my face and pushed my hair back. I liked it but I was confused and wondered what her intentions were, especially since we were drunk. We didn’t mention a word about it when we texted the following days. We gave each other more hugs when we saw each other on campus. The next weekend when we hadn’t been drinking, I found myself in her bed again, interlocking my fingers with hers and our faces close to each other. I leaned in and kissed her on her cheek and soon enough my lips found hers.

Even after I told Elena that I had cheated on her, I didn’t stop. Gloria and I spent all our time together freshman year; I wanted to continue spending time with her sophomore year too. Only this time, every weekend it was orange juice and vodka, hickies, moans, and sex for hours until we got hungry again.

Everything happened so fast and intensely; I didn’t have time to make sense of it all. I wasn’t thinking, I was feeling — times a thousand. I vacillated between desire and heartache, passion and sorrow, excitement and misery, weaving a myriad of highs and lows. I wanted Gloria. It hurt to face Elena.

I kept both Gloria and Elena tangled in my mess. I told Gloria I broke up with Elena but I didn’t exactly make a clean break. I gave Elena doubtful responses about our relationship and wasn’t firm in saying we were over; I told her I didn’t know what was going on between Gloria and I. I knew I was breaking Elena’s heart and I knew she was far away from home for the first time and didn’t have any friends yet so I thought telling Elena I loved her and that everything would be ok would help soften the blow. I made things worse.

Elena thought I strayed, but that I could come back to her. She started texting me, calling me and messaging me on Facebook more frequently, more frantically.

do you want to be with me?
am i the same person you fell for almost 3 years ago? because i have faith that i am and there’s still room for us to exist…

As weeks passed by, her messages became angrier.

why the fuck don’t you just tell me the truth. that you’re just waiting for me to get over this so that you all can be in a relationship in peace? why couldn’t you just say no??? you cheated on me. you CHEATED on me. wtf is wrong with you????

I forwarded her calls when they became a dozen too many, and when I did pick up, I didn’t say much. I didn’t write back. I was paralyzed and had no idea how to process the feelings caught in my throat. I was guilty and heartbroken and I wasn’t ready to let go of Elena: my first kiss, my first time, my first girlfriend, my first love, my first everything and before that, my best friend. I didn’t know how to imagine my life without her. But at the same time, I eagerly awaited being with Gloria. Every time I was with her I was happy. It was like our friendship last year but heightened. I wasn’t being fair to either one.

Gloria and I were under the covers in her apartment one night and my phone kept ringing. I put it on silent and went back to bed. We were dozing off when I noticed the glow from my phone. I got up to turn it off but I saw I had 30 missed calls from Elena. I felt panicked, like something really horrible had happened. I called her from Gloria’s bathroom.

“Hey, are you ok?” I asked.

“Why didn’t you answer? Are you with her?”

“No, I’m home, what’s wrong?” I had perfected lying by this point.

“Yvonne, I don’t know what to fucking think. I don’t know what to fucking do.”

The longer I was on the phone, the angrier Gloria would be. I hung up as soon as I could.

I took the only math course I needed for my degree that semester and attempted to do my homework in my dorm’s study room late at night after working at my university’s newspaper. I settled onto my favorite plush sofa, beat and stressed, trying to finish my standard deviation homework and contemplating what I should do. I waited for the guy who would always play the UP theme song on the grand piano in the study room to give me a different reason to cry.

In the dead of night in the study room, I felt alone. I desperately wished I had someone who would listen. I wanted to ugly cry into someone’s shoulder and be consoled and hugged and given some advice. I called my only gay friend, Mariana. She was the only person I could talk to about this horrid situation because she was the only other person who knew I was gay and could possibly understand. We were friends in high school but weren’t out to each other, officially, until we graduated.

“Yvonne, you can’t do this to yourself or to them. If you want to be with Gloria, you’re going to have to stop talking to Elena completely.”

For a moment, relief swept over me. I wanted Elena’s cascade of probing questions to stop. Why? How could you? It was tempting to never have to answer them.

But the moment passed. It seemed like an impossible feat. I couldn’t do that, not now. I thought, no one knows, who will be there for her?

Once my family and I arrived at Disneyland, outfitted in our matching green shirts, our Christmas was able to commence. I was determined to forget about Elena and about being sad and actually have fun. Once the park gates opened for the day, crowds of families with children swarmed the entrance. My brother grabbed a map and we sat on a bench to plot our day and give us some time to adjust to the huge crowds.

What the Disney Christmas Day Parade doesn’t show you on TV is that the holidays are the busiest time of the year for Disneyland; people from literally all around the world visit with their toddlers in strollers. It was impossible to navigate around so many tiny humans and wheels down Main Street, U.S.A. I was slightly comforted knowing I could be swallowed by a mob at any given moment.

J.J. and I led the way to Tomorrowland and got in line for Space Mountain with my sister. We were prepared to wait for at least an hour on all the big attractions. We were at Disney to spend time with each other and time was all we had in lines.

“How did you like working for the Daily Texan?” Yvette asked me.

“I loved it! I wrote a lot of cool stories, but working late kinda sucked sometimes,” I told her.

I told them about a story I wrote about an organization that helps immigrant workers fight wage theft, about how I had to interview city officials about a transportation bond and how I was starting to feel like a real journalist. I told them about how stressful it was working against newspaper deadlines.

What I really wanted to tell them was how I felt like shit the entire semester. I wanted to confess my mistakes, announce my messiness to them just so I could tell them that I was gay.

Instead, we hopped in a cart that launched us into fake space and into a million stars.

I thought I could escape at Disneyland. It was the happiest place on Earth and I thought maybe I could absorb some of it. The second day at Disneyland, my sister and I bought matching Minnie ears with a sequined red bow and even those iconic ears could not save me from feeling like my insides were made out of concrete.

I hugged my mom and dad sporadically while we waited around for Mickey-shaped pretzels and took rest breaks. A part of me longed to be held by them. I wanted their reassurance that they still would love me even if I was gay. I held on to them because they didn’t know yet and at least I had them now. They reminded me of how isolated I felt, a disconnect that weakened me.

As we posed with Pooh and Tigger in Santa hats, I smiled for the camera so when we looked back at the photos, no one would detect the pain burrowed in me. I avoided my phone while we were at the parks but once we got back to the hotel, I stared blankly at the screen, at the missed calls from Elena, at the text messages from Gloria saying she missed me. I didn’t dare call either of them while I was in the room with my family and risk them overhearing my conversations. I texted Gloria that I missed her too, told her and Elena that I couldn’t talk because I was with my family and put my phone on silent.

The next day we were in Critter Country and passing by Splash Mountain, a ride I really wanted to get on. Even though we were in Southern California, it was still chilly enough to wear a sweater in December. Yvette and J.J. were skeptical about getting on Splash Mountain because they didn’t want to get wet in the cool weather.

“Come on! It’s just a little sprinkle, we won’t get wet,” I coaxed them. Splash Mountain is a Disney staple in all the commercials; I needed to try it.

After seeing that the last log full of people go down the big drop weren’t completely soaked, Yvette agreed to get on the ride with me. When it was finally our turn to hop in a log, I wound up riding in the last seat and my sister sat in the seat in front of me. I was excited as we started off.

The log wound around a narrow track of water and clicked up over a hill and down a small drop. We headed inside a cave full of singing animatronic rabbits, frogs, foxes, and bears which comes in second after the It’s a Small World ride for creepiest performance by inanimate objects. The singing critters told a story I didn’t quite understand as we continued through the water. In the dark cave, the critters were cheery until a conflict in the story arose. The log took several fast turns and then a sudden drop in the dark into a glow-in-the dark, neon, mushroom world with singing birds that was a bit more unsettling.

The log headed into the darkness, towards the theatrical lightening and vultures perched above us as we passed. Click, click, click, the gears turned as we began our ascent. I saw an opening of light up ahead, the darkness fading behind us.

As the log reached the end of the tunnel, I saw the open sky. Here it comes, the 50-foot drop. The end was near and I welcomed it. I was ready.

Click, click. From the top, I saw the crowds in the park and the rushing waters down below. Click, click, and then in a split second, silence as the gears let gravity work. We were over the edge and down, down, down we went. I floated in a thrilling suspension, screaming in delight and terror as I held on to the rail in front of me and not the Minnie ears on my head. As the log collided with the water, a wave hit me in the last seat and soaked my sweater and jeans, leaving me to be a soggy mess for the rest of the day.

Before I knew it, it was over.

#PolyamoryProblems: Advice for Newbies with Too Many Feelings

Q:

Dear DaemonumX,

I just had a breakup from my first polyamorous relationship and I feel like a failure. After about six months something imploded. It feels like I had too many feelings and my now ex, who had years more experience than me, just didn’t want to deal with my newb vibes anymore. She would often dismiss my questions or what I thought was me standing up for myself/setting boundaries by implying that if I was truly poly I wouldn’t bring these things up and I would be chill. I admit that a lot of times in this relationship I was not chill, and I feel kind of ashamed about that now. I want to do better next time and I’m wondering what your advice is for newbies and/or dating more seasoned polyamorous partners?

Sincerely,
Eager to do better

A:

Dear Eager,

Thanks for this question! I think this specific scenario you’re describing is really significant and I want to tackle what could be going on from all angles. I’ve heard different variations on this scenario many times. I wrote a zine a few years ago about polyamory where I crowdsourced from friends and partners different red flags they wished they’d heeded when beginning their polyamory journey. Overwhelmingly, most of them said that early on they dated someone who weaponized experience and language against them to infantilize or manipulate them. “If you were a real ___, you’d do ___.” I’m not trying to say your partner did this specifically (or maybe she did?) but I think this is a good place to start.

When we don’t see our own relationships or desires mirrored back to us in society or media, there’s a blank slate for us to bring our wildest dreams to life. With any kind of alternative relationship (not cis-het monogamy) I think there are power imbalances that exist simply from having prior experience. Think of an older gay showing a baby gay the ropes, or an experienced domme playing with a new sub— the same exists for someone who has practiced polyamory before and someone who is dipping their toes in for the first time. The new person tends to defer to what the experienced person says is good or The Right Way, just because they trust that someone else knows better. This is great when it comes to something like apprenticing for a new skill, you want to stay humble and defer to your teacher. However, for matters of the heart and in relationships where you can choose your own adventure, allowing someone else to dictate The Right Way is never going to be in your best interest.

Let’s say that you ask your partner some basic questions about her new date and she answers with “Why do you want to know? This feels like an interrogation.” or “I don’t talk about other dates because that’s private.” Those responses can leave someone feeling really shut down and even ashamed for being inquisitive. A few more of this type of response and that person just stops asking questions at all. I know exactly how this feels because I’ve been there before! Another example is if you bring a hard emotion to your partner like, “Hey it didn’t feel good when you canceled our date to hang out with your other partner.” and the reply is something like “I’m sorry but that’s just how it goes in polyamory. I’ve been dating them longer so they always get priority. You would understand if you had more experience.” This answer may make a new person feel like they clearly just don’t know what polyamory is! And that they don’t have a right to be upset that their partner is acting like a jerk!

All this to say that I hope this isn’t the type of stuff your ex was saying! New or not, your feelings should be heard and you should be able to ask for what you want, advocate for your needs, and at the very least have your questions answered. Doing polyamory for the first time can be A Lot, and if your partner isn’t up for the patience that dating a polyamorous novice sometimes requires, they definitely shouldn’t be dating people who haven’t had prior experience. What’s most important, though, is that no matter what you are allowed to be an active participant in steering the ship of any relationship you are in. A one-sided relationship where only one person is calling the shots is a huge red flag.

You mentioned that you were not chill a lot of the time in this relationship. I’m here to first tell you not to be so hard on yourself! Nothing has been chill for a very long time *gestures broadly,* so if you get a little rowdy with your emotions, who can blame you? I assume you’d like to be more chill in your next relationships, and that’s a fair goal. In processing your breakup, definitely take your own inventory. Ask yourself where the anxiety was coming from? Were you feeling activated in some way? What do you have to work on? It’s always good to try and do better! I also just want to point out that in my most not chill times in relationships, I was dating people who were exacerbating my pretty baseline feelings of polyam anxiety, essentially the lifelong task of unlearning monogamy culture, by either lying, refusing to share information, or telling me that my feelings meant that I wasn’t radical enough. Surprisingly, I’ve been extremely chill since I stopped dating people who essentially don’t share my core values.

For the future, I recommend standing in your power. The more you are sure of what you want (or at least sure of what you don’t want) and the kind of bullshit you won’t stand for, the quicker you can weed out prospective dates who are not going to be the best match for you. Think of all the times that something your ex did or said gave you pause and you kept quiet for fear of being too needy, or seeming “not poly enough.” Make a list of what you should have said or would have asked for if you weren’t made to feel like you didn’t have a say. You’ve just made a list of your new boundaries! Be vigilant in the future about not shrinking yourself and pay attention to your future date’s responses to your feelings, needs, wants, and desires. If someone has a pattern of dismissing you or shutting you down, know that this is not a trait of people more practiced in polyamory, it’s a trait of people who are just selfish.

Consider this time as a blessing to take a step back and do an exercise in dreaming for yourself. There are so many different styles of polyamory and you will eventually find the one that works for you. It’s so easy to collapse all polyamory into one relationship style when it is really an umbrella term for being open to loving more than one person romantically. If you haven’t done this already, think really hard about how you might want to orient yourself in this lifestyle. How full your life is already can help you determine what you have space for and where your capacity may end. You have some experience under your belt now, and that’s great! What about your past relationship didn’t work for you? What were the things you wish you had more of? What do you want to do differently? Polyamory in theory is one thing, but remember that you have to put it in practice to actually figure out if your ideals work for you.

More advice for people new to polyamory besides me screaming from the rooftops not to shrink yourself is to get some community! Depending on where you live, I know that this is easier said than done. Online community can be really important here as well! Not only does community help you feel less isolated, but witnessing other people’s relationships can give you insight into what you do and do not want for yourself. TBH, witnessing other people’s extremely messy relationships explode has helped me keep my own self in check (what not to do!). This advice also harks back to what you said about your ex dismissing your feelings or telling you that you weren’t really polyamorous for having those feeling. Community and close friends help us to reality check both our own behavior as well as our partners. It can be hard to get advice or feedback you can trust if all of your friends are monogamous.

For example, let’s say I’m having some hard feelings of jealousy and I act out on those feelings by doing something that doesn’t align with my values. Let’s say that I create a fake Instagram account to follow (stalk) my partner’s date. My expectation and standards for my friends is that when I mention to them that I’m doing this, they immediately call me in and tell me that I need to delete the account and get it together. They ask me what I’m doing to manage my jealousy instead of being a creep about it. Friends who don’t lean in and ask me to be accountable are not friends I want to have. Another example in the other direction is that when my partners are treating me badly, let’s say someone is dismissing my feelings constantly and refusing to acknowledge their toxic behavior. My friends will also let me know “Hey, this behavior is really gross. How can I support you in standing up for yourself?”

I think the themes here are to really get to know yourself and what you want, start setting boundaries around other people dismissing your feelings, make an active effort to find community or at least a few polyamorous friends who you can trust, and always be kind to yourself. Choosing to have relationships that are different from the majority of the world is not a small feat, the road will be bumpy. If you know in your heart that this is for you, it’s really worth the effort. There’s no rush, Eager, you will meet the right people and figure out your own rhythm in time!

#PolyamoryProblems: How Can I Make My Primary Partner Have More Fun?

Q:

Dear Daemonum X,

I need some guidance on my current relationship. My live-in primary partner and I have been together for six+ years. We decided to open our relationship and be non-monogamous two years ago. We are basically opposites, I’m super outgoing with tons of friends and she is a shy introvert with two best friends, she loves staying home and I love going out, I’m sexually adventurous and she’s vanilla. All these reasons make it really practical for us to be non-monog and we can get needs met from other places. However, she has only slept with one other person in the last two years while I don’t know if I can count on two hands what number I’m on. Anyway, our relationship feels really uneven. I really want her to be out having fun experiences, and I have a fantasy of us doing some of these things together. When I encourage her or invite her she isn’t interested. Is there anything I can do to make her come out of her shell? Being a hedonist alone is just kind of… lonely.

Sincerely,
Lonely in Love

A:

Dear Lonely in Love,

The first thing that comes to mind is the tale as old as time, yes I’m talking about Beauty and the Beast. You know the completely romanticized love story that teaches us how magical it is when opposites attract? The beautiful country girl finds love in the spelled angry beast. In your case — the feisty outgoing free-lover falls for the quiet bookish recluse (I may be embellishing a little bit but stick with me). Taking the theory of magnetism and applying it to romance just doesn’t work. In fact, psychological research has disproved the adage that opposites attract time and time again. Most happy relationships are between people who are actually quite similar. Maybe you have more in common than you’re letting on, but sticking around despite your myriad of differences may actually be doing you a disservice.

Although your advice question was directed at “helping” your partner, I actually want to talk more about you! I’ll assume you’ve been pretty happy in your relationship since you’ve been together for so long. You’ve had six whole years to learn who your partner is, what she’s into, and what she’s comfortable with. So my question is, why don’t you see her? What I mean is — you know she’s an introvert who sticks to herself and likes vanilla sex. She sounds lovely. What I’m hearing from your question is that you want to change someone with perfectly fine behavior to be… more like you? That’s pretty fucked up. Do you think that your partner is a reflection of you? Do you feel like she’s holding you back? Or, maybe you feel some type of way about your behavior and think that a partner in crime will quell your shame? I could continue to guess what’s at the bottom of this but ultimately you should try to understand your impulse to control and shut that down fast.

“My partner would be so perfect for me if they would just ___.” Unless this fill in the blank is something mundane like “stop leaving their hair in the shower drain,” it’s gotta go! No one is perfect, and it’s wild and unrealistic to even project that onto someone. Everyone’s differences are what make them special and interesting. How can you accept your partner for who she is and stop thinking the ways her (perfectly fine) behavior makes you feel lonely is something you need to fix in her? What can you do to get your needs met that doesn’t include projecting or controlling?

You said it yourself, one of the great things about non-monogamy is that you can have lots of different intimate connections that help you get all your needs met. If you think about what you need in order to be happy, does that include having a live-in primary partner that’s the life of the party who you can have sexual adventures with? It’s totally fine to have those needs and standards for your relationship. However, the ethics of coaxing your partner into fundamentally changing who she is are not in your favor. It’s your responsibility to get your needs met, and if your partner can’t be the match you’re looking for then maybe it’s time to evolve your relationship (breakup, deescalate, move out, etc). It’s possible that having more life experience than you did six years ago and learning more about yourself has shown you that your needs have changed and so must your primary relationship.

It might be good for you to be with someone who you’re more aligned with in terms of outgoing personality and hedonist predilections. However, you might go out and get what you want but still feel lonely. Companionship is super important, but unless you have a solid relationship with yourself you might feel a pattern of loneliness even when you’re in relationships. If you’re looking for others to complete you or fill some type of void that you feel, most of the time that specific call is coming from inside the house. You’re a whole ass person all by yourself! I don’t know if this is what’s going on for you specifically, but it’s something to watch out for as you may be moving from one relationship where you feel lonely into others where that feeling doesn’t go away. Be sure to check in with yourself and make sure you’re constantly working on having a better relationship with you.

The last thing I want to advise you on is the part of your query where you lament the uneven feeling in your relationship. An uneven feeling is a problem when we’re talking about the housework, or the childcare, or the rent. However, if you’re feeling uneven because you’ve been fucking lots of people and your partner hasn’t, or because you’re a party monster and she’s a snuggle monster, this doesn’t seem like a problem to fix. If you’re non-monogamous these issues should, in theory, be solved by the very definition of non-monogamy. Why do you feel the need to be “even” in what you’re doing? If your partner doesn’t want to have sex with as many people as you, that’s ok! Meeting new people is a lot of work and isn’t always a fun time for everyone. I strongly advise you to stop comparing yourself to her and stop troubling the gaps between your behavior that are simply indicative of the natural difference between you two.

Lonely In Love, I really hope my words gave you a gentle wake up call. Whatever you decide to do with your relationship, I strongly suggest you do some deep journaling about your desire to change your partner, and your desire for a more equal count of fucks. Can you accept your partner for who she really is, and can you see and appreciate her differences as traits that endear you to her? Are you able to soul search and decide if your feeling of loneliness is something you need to solve within yourself, or is it actually trying to tell you that you would be happier in a more aligned relationship? I’m sure you know that only you can answer these questions. Good luck!

When I Got COVID, My Wife and I Went Through It Together; How Will Things Change When She Returns to the Office?

This essay is part of a series from Autostraddle writers about how they’re approaching dating and relationships at our current stage in the pandemic – read the rest here!

I read the first Boxcar Children book when I was eight years old, and immediately daydreamed a world where I, too, lived in an isolated little shack or tiny house or cabin, growing my own food, no one telling me what to do, or how to be, just me and the wide open world. I checked out books at the library about gardening and chopping wood and building fires. I cut out magazine photos of cottages nestled into the snowy mountains, not another living soul in sight. I love being alone. I have always loved being alone. I spent most of my life planning a future for just me and the pets I would love.

So of course it’s deeply ironic that I chose to get married and live in New York City. But my wife, Stacy, isn’t like anyone I’ve ever known, and when I met her and fell in love with her, it was like some kind of magical introvert alchemy. She is the only person I have ever known who always energizes me. I still need a lot of alone time, but being with her, even after ten years, is my favorite way to be — and so I just folded her into my daydream. Me and her together, alone, in a secluded cabin in the woods. The last year has kind of been like that, but with the option to have groceries and prescriptions and takeout delivered directly to our door. Our relationship has never been better or stronger or happier. We trip over each other in the kitchen multiple times a day, and still our affection bubbles over.

It’s impossible to know if that’s how it would have been if I hadn’t gotten Covid and Long Covid, but I did, and so every moment we have together — watching women’s basketball, cooking breakfast, playing board games, singing silly songs to our cats, lying together reading, sitting in the same room playing our own video games, or even working at our own jobs directly across from each other at the same table — is rooted in gratitude. We are both keenly aware, in ways we never have been, of how fragile everything really is, including our health and our bodies and our actual lives. We’ve stared down mortality this year. Not just me and Stacy. All of us.

I’m so happy things seem to be trending in the right direction with the pandemic. Mostly of course so we won’t continue to lose hundreds of thousands of lives, so doctors and nurses and grocery clerks and delivery people and janitors and surgeons and all our frontline workers can move through the world more safely and with less physical and emotional trauma. And also of course so people can be with people again! So I can see and hug and sit in the same room with my friends and family! So Stacy can pick up on the astronomical trajectory of her career that was skyrocketing before the world shut down! So we can stop living in constant fear of this virus and all the destruction it has caused!

But also I am afraid of emerging from this cocoon I’ve been in for a year and having to relearn to navigate the world and all my relationships as a person with multiple chronic illnesses and a disability — especially without Stacy by my side. That’s a hard thing to write because even though Stacy and I have been together for a decade, and even though we’ve built our lives around each other, there’s always been a deeply independent streak in both of us, a pride as individuals about how self-sufficient we both were. We both had very full and separate lives outside of our life as a couple, before Covid. I don’t know if either of us really understand how much that has changed in the last year.

In terms of being a person with a disability, I’m mostly self-sufficient (again: as long as delivery exists!), but sometimes I have terrible and terrifying crashes, and Stacy knows just what to do now, just what to say, just what to bring to me, and just what I’m trying to say, even when my Dysautonomia robs me of my words. She springs into action during those times and handles anything that needs to be handled: finishing up the chore I was in the middle of doing and had to abandon, taking care of our cats, making dinner and bringing it to me on a tray when I can’t get out of bed, translating my mish-mashed phrases. And all the things she does when I’m not crashed, just daily things, like preparing my Liquid IV every night and bringing it to my bedside every morning, or noticing when I’ve gotten too busy working and forgotten to pause and take my meds, or helping me keep track of everything every doctor says because she can overhear every call.

Mostly, though, her presence makes bearing it all so much easier. She makes me laugh all day, she constantly encourages me, and she’s a sounding board when I get upset that, say, someone yelled at me for crossing the street too slowly, or when I’m experiencing some kind of frustrating or demoralizing situation where I’m having to request the same accessibility accommodations over and over and over. Over the past 12 months, I have been forced to do the thing I’ve always been the worst at: be real about what I’m incapable of doing, and ask other people to do things in a way that’s not easiest or most convenient for them, so it will be accessible for me. It’s hard enough to do it once. But I’ve discovered that it’s actually never just a single ask. I have to keep asking because people keep defaulting to their normal, to my old normal, and every time I have to speak up and say, “No, actually, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t, remember? I can’t.”, it eats away at my very limited energy and forces me to re-confront my shifting identity.

But when that happens and Stacy’s home, I can rest my forehead against her forehead, or hold her hand in my hand, or rant and growl, or even just share a look of understanding. So much of my identity is solidified in proximity to her, and in her belief in me. “That’s not a you problem; that’s a them problem,” is what she says, and I believe her every time.

I’m also just kind of sad to see our Boxcar Children time coming to an end. We probably won’t be together this much again until we’re both retired, and even though it has been, at times, harder than anything either of us could have imagined when the pandemic started, it’s also been some of our sweetest, most intimate, silliest, funnest times we’ve ever had as a couple. The playlists! The quest to cook the perfect scrambled eggs! The board games! The Great British Bake Off and Top Chef marathons! The singing and the dancing and the never-ending inside joke! We got married in our own living room, for goodness’ sake!

Over the last decade, mine and Stacy’s relationship has been through so many incarnations, and I know it will go through a zillion more over the course of our lives. One thing that hasn’t changed is my Boxcar dreams. What’s next will bring its own challenges and joys, like all the manifestations before it, and we’ll rise to meet them. I’ll sigh a big breath of relief on the days I draw the Hermit from my tarot deck. I’ll keep bookmarking photos of secluded cabins (for two). I’ll text her at work when someone honks at me because I’m baby-stepping through the crosswalk, and she’ll say, “Fuck them!” And, “I love you.” And, “Let’s play Yahtzee when I get home.”

After a Crash Course in Cohabitation, My Pandemic Relationship Will Have to Weather Outside Socialization

This essay is part of a series from Autostraddle writers about how they’re approaching dating and relationships at our current stage in the pandemic – read the rest here!

I’m in a relationship that was long-distance before we moved in together approximately… two months before isolation, quarantine, pandemic, flatten the curve, and social distancing all became regular phrases we heard and used every day. We essentially went from long distance to lockdown. It was a major relationship shift to say the least.

At the risk of stating the obvious: The pandemic has truly tested a lot of relationships. For us, we had to learn how to not just live together but live TOGETHER together all the time. We learned a lot very quickly, and in some ways, it was a good thing. Whereas living with a new partner can sometimes require a lot of awkward growth, lessons, and drawn-out conflicts about space, needs, boundaries, etc., we had to work through those things right the fuck away. It was a crash course in cohabitation.

So from long distance to lockdown to… what now? I’m honestly not sure! And for once, uncertainty isn’t really freaking me out. I know our relationship, our home life, our social lives, and our priorities are going to shift in major ways again. We’re both passionate about our writing careers, and the world opening up means she’ll be traveling a lot again and I’ll have opportunities beyond our apartment, too. Because of the early dating stage we were in when the pandemic hit, the slowing down of our lives was actually not always the worst thing in the world. We genuinely liked spending a lot of quality time together, which is a very lucky thing, because we were each other’s only company. But we’re both absolutely looking forward to being very busy again.

I also know we’re both going to experience post-vaccine life in very different ways. My partner tends to be more extroverted for me, and I predict I’m going to struggle more with social anxiety than she will when we start hanging out with people again. But we both already know these things about each other because, again, we learned a lot about each other from spending…24/7 with each other for over a year. I won’t lie: I don’t think it’ll be a completely seamless transition, because I have to imagine being stuck in a home together for so long has had an impact on our dynamic. I usually have an anxious attachment style, and it has moved toward becoming more secure during the pandemic, but that could shift again as we start to spend more time apart. I’m anticipating having to check in with myself about those things. I’m anticipating change in general, but after a year that included a lot of monotony, I’m not scared of change. Bring it on tbh.

In this next stage, I hope to focus on friendships. I know the prompt here is specifically about dating/relationships, but I actually think this is somewhat related. My girlfriend and I are building a life together in a new city, and that has been difficult to do in a pandemic, especially because we have been doing it on our own. Because we chose to move somewhere where we know few people in the middle of a pandemic, we’ve both struggled to put down roots individually and as a couple. I have many wonderful friends who have been there for me virtually throughout this pandemic, but there are days when I feel lonely. When I moved from New York at the end of 2019, I didn’t realize I wouldn’t be able to go back for a long time. In keeping us confined to one place, the pandemic significantly restructured my relationship. So much of our time together before was spent traveling.

And then we moved to Miami. It was an exciting move but also an overwhelming one. It’s hard to get to know a city when you can’t really leave your home. But widespread vaccination is going to make it possible for us to actually explore the place where we live, put down those roots, and MAKE FRIENDS. I cannot stress enough how excited I am to make some goddamn friends in Miami!!!!!! Because we didn’t live together for long before the pandemic hit, we never got to the stage of dating where we make friends together. I hope it happens! I think in-person socializing is going to strengthen our relationship overall.

We have spent the past year+ focusing on our relationship in an inward looking way, because we became each other’s only day-to-day presence. Don’t get me wrong: That was all great relationship work! Connecting deeply, forming new routines and rituals, cracking each other up, finding ways to still have fun together in a very strange and sad and stressful year. It was all very… domestic? Which I enjoyed in some ways. I may have never mastered sourdough, but I often joke that I’ve made a very good housewife during all this.

But of course I crave more. I want our relationship to be a more expansive, more multidimensional thing again—not something that’s contained to a household. So in this next stage of the pandemic, I’m looking toward building our relationship in a more outward direction: making new friends, nurturing existing friendships, exploring Miami, supporting each other’s careers, and balancing our individual and shared lives.

You Need Help: How Do I Be a Good Partner to My Trans Girlfriend?

Q:

Reading the Autostraddle help columns have helped me navigate many of my queer life dilemmas, so I’m finally submitting a question. My girlfriend, the love of my life, the queen of my soul, etc started transfemme HRT about a month ago. I’m crazy in love with them and I’m really honored and excited to be loving them through this life changing moment. The thing is, neither of us really know how to navigate this weird time. I am cis-ish AFAB and usually ID as lesbian, when I google trans lesbian relationships usually I get a bunch of TERF garbage invalidating me and/or invalidating my babe.

My question is amorphous but– transfemmes and transfemme lesbians of the straddleverse, any tips on how I can be the best gal pal possible through this moment that we are both excited/nervous/unsure about? Or just anything you wish you’d known when you were younger and in perhaps similar situations? Any content you’d recommend?

A:

To be honest, I’ve been sitting on this question for months. I hope in the time that’s passed your girlfriend has enjoyed the excitement and relief of early medical transition and I hope you’ve been alongside them in the ways they needed.

I’ve struggled with this question, because my initial instinct was to say: Just be normal?? I don’t know your girlfriend?? All trans people are individuals??

And while that is still what my gut wants to shout, I think there’s a deeper truth beneath my snark that’s worth expanding upon. (Also I’m not sure Autostraddle would let me publish a three sentence response.)

When I say “be normal,” I do not mean there aren’t unique experiences to being trans and therefore unique experiences when dating someone trans. That’s obviously not the case, especially when your girlfriend is so new in their transition. I just want to emphasize that what your girlfriend needs will have to be communicated by your girlfriend.

What your girlfriend needs and what I needed from my partner a month into taking hormones are likely not the same. We probably have different relationships to our bodies, to our genders, to our respective partners, to society. Like so many things in so many different relationships, the boring but honest answer is communication. Listen to your girlfriend’s desires and be there for them however they need.

For example, your girlfriend may want you to correct people who get their pronouns wrong. Or maybe that’s mortifying to them and they’d rather you not. Or maybe they only want you to do it if they aren’t around. All valid! All reasonable reactions! You won’t know what they want without talking to them.

Or maybe as their body changes on the hormones they’re going to want different things sexually. In fact, that’s very likely. Maybe their relationship to their genitalia will change. Maybe it won’t that much! Maybe they’ll want more nipple play as sensitivity increases and their boobs get bigger. Or maybe they won’t! Maybe the hormones will lower their sex drive and you’ll have to adjust and work through that. Or maybe, like me, they’ll be hornier than ever, and you’ll have to adjust to that and work through that. I cannot say. But your girlfriend can! Or maybe they can’t. That’s okay too. Maybe they won’t always know what they want. But, still, it will be better for them to express that to you so you can talk it out.

In order for this communication to take place, your girlfriend needs to trust you. And it’s clear that you love them and want to create or continue that trust. And so I’ll return to my initial point: be normal. Because being too eager or too worried about saying the right thing can be just as alienating as disapproval. In order for your girlfriend to trust you, you need to trust yourself. Trust that you love them and will be there for them. Trust that you won’t always do or say the right thing but that mostly you will. Trust that when you falter it’ll be okay and you will learn.

Express your love however your girlfriend needs that love expressed. I hope they do the same for you.

#PolyamoryProblems: How To Deal With Jealousy

Q:

Dear Daemonum X,

I started dating someone about six months ago named K who already had a long-term partner of two years. For context, I also have another partner named L. Everything has been really great and smooth and things have been going well until fairly recently. K started dating someone new about a month ago and is already spending a lot of time with her and I’ve never been so jealous in my life! I’m not sure what’s going on with me. I tried to talk to her about it but I got super upset, mostly with myself for feeling this way. I’ve never felt anything more than low grade jealousy that passes super fast with any of my other partners in any of their other relationships. I’m starting to feel resentful towards K, I think, because her relationship is the cause of all these feelings. How do I deal? I don’t want to feel like this anymore!

Sincerely,
Jealous Judy

A:

Dear Jealous Judy,

Congratulations if you’ve gotten this far into polyamory and haven’t had difficult jealousy feelings yet. Truly, a miracle! People think jealousy is something that only polyamory newbies feel, and once they’ve spent an arbitrary amount of time in several relationships at once they simply ascend to a higher being that doesn’t feel jealous. This must be true because why would people continue to do things that make them uncomfortable? Why would anyone choose to suffer in polyamorous relationships when they could easily go back to the land of monogamy where jealousy simply does not exist!? All jokes aside, it’s understandable why you’re feeling really out of control and down on yourself about this considering you’re not a newbie. If you’ve never had these feelings before, of course you don’t know how to deal with them.

Let’s start there, JJ, in hopes of ridding you of some shame. This is my campaign to normalize jealousy at all levels of polyamory. Actually let’s go one step higher and normalize jealousy in all relationships, period! It happens, and it means you’re human, and it is okay! This is super annoying of me to say but most of the time I see jealousy as a gift. You feel it’s scaly little body start swimming in your stomach and you want to get rid of it immediately but hear me out! What if it’s actually here to teach you something.

Jealousy is mostly irrational (no one is *making you* feel jealous), but there are instances where jealousy is a beacon of intuition that we need to actually listen to. Jealousy can signal to us that something is wrong. If your partner is actively doing some shady things that make you feel jealous, that is totally not cool and you should listen to your gut. Hopefully you’ve already discerned that this is not the case, but let’s talk about that real quick for our readers at home. It is possible to incite jealousy in someone else. For example, years ago before femme4femme was more popular, I was dating someone masc and we happened to have the same type—femmes. Because of the way our community prioritized masc-femme relationships, I didn’t have much dating luck at all. My date knew this, and constantly threw it in my face. He would brag to me obnoxiously at length about how many femmes were interested in him, practically banging down his door to date him. While no one owes me a date or attention ever, trust me when I say that he was trying to make me feel badly by constantly pointing out how desirable he was. I unfortunately didn’t listen to my gut when I knew he purposely inciting jealousy and that ended very badly. I recommend diving deep to understand if your jealousy is actually stemming from reality by asking if someone is truly trying to make you feel insecure or unworthy?

Most of the time you will likely discover that your jealous feelings are completely irrational. The useful axiom “feelings aren’t facts” comes into play here. In other words, what you’re feeling is real, but it’s not necessarily true. That’s the pesky thing about jealousy that everyone hates so much—if you dig a little deeper you’ll find that it’s highlighting a story you’ve made up, or a story that others created and you’ve internalized. “My partner is dating someone with a PhD and I have a GED. Soon she will realize how stupid I am and break up with me!” This is an example of a made up story that’s fueling jealousy completely founded on internalizing wack ideas that higher education actually makes you smarter, better, etc.

A lot of times we get bad feelings as a result of comparing ourselves to other people. Making a list in your head of why you don’t stack up to your metamours is a fast track to being miserable. Therapist and mindfulness teacher Tara Brach said something about comparing yourself to others that kind of changed my life. She said that (paraphrasing) the second you compare yourself to someone else, you vacate your own life experience and disrespect yourself and the other person. In comparing, you’re projecting onto other people, which also denies them agency. It’s helpful for me to think about the act of making comparisons in this rather extreme way even if these comparisons are only in my head.

Maybe you’re someone who’s pretty secure and emotionally adept and you just haven’t had your very specific spot poked at yet. What spot? The spot that turns you into Jealous Judy. We’ve all got it! The sensitive spots can be so different for each person. Some people have ten while others have one. Sometimes people can’t deal when a metamour is similar to them because it makes them feel like there’s a master plot to replace them. Some people can’t deal when a metamour has a skillset or career that they wish they had. Sometimes it’s all about the looks—is K’s new partner so hot that it makes you feel like Gollum in comparison? Once you start to feel this unpassing form of jealousy try and map out what spot is being poked. Is there a story there that you’ve created or internalized that you now have to work to unlearn? Try to be kind to yourself and remember that beating yourself up or shaming yourself for having a hard time will not help you at all.

It’s a cliche at this point but just naming exactly what The Spot is really is half the battle. I’m a huge horror movie fan. In movies about demonic possession like The Exorcist or The Conjuring 2 it’s always part of the plot line that once they figure out the name of the demon they’re trying to exorcise, the demon loses some power. Jealousy is just like that, duh! Once you’ve learned what’s going on, and can speak the story out loud or write it down, it will disempower your illusions or unfounded beliefs that are underneath it all. The work, however, doesn’t stop there. Next, you have to try to step outside the story that you have about yourself that’s making you feel insecure.

The last way that jealousy can be a gift is that it can illuminate when we have needs that aren’t being met. The fucked up thing is that sometimes it’s a need you didn’t even know you had! Let’s say that you don’t feel an ongoing jealousy about K’s new partner and you can pinpoint very specific times where you have felt jealous about their relationship. For example, let’s say that K brings her new date to her friend group’s zoom hang out and then tells you that all her friends really loved her, which sends you into a spin of jealousy. You play it cool because acting out on your jealousy is not a good look. After spending some time thinking about your feelings on your own you realize that you don’t even remember the last time K asked you to spend time with her friends. Friends are super important to you and you have the realization that you would love to get to know K’s friends better if she feels comfortable with that. Bam! Your jealousy shined a light on something you didn’t really know you needed until you saw someone else getting it! Now you can talk to K about your revelation and ask for what you need. Just be careful here to discern that it is actually something you need, and not something you want just because you saw someone else getting it.

In summary, there are three main things that conjure jealousy— someone’s actions are actually making you feel bad (a red flag), your spots of insecurity are being poked, and/or you have needs that aren’t being met. You say “I don’t want to feel like this anymore” at the end of your question, and while that’s a fair desire, I can’t guarantee you will magically stop feeling this way. Getting to the bottom of what thing is conjuring your jealousy is a good way to start working through those feelings though, and hopefully you’ll eventually be able to “deal” or at least not resent K and her new relationship so much for spurring these realizations in the form of jealousy. The good news here is that a lot of this work can (and must) be personal work, so ideally you can redirect your energy from resenting K to exploring your own wants and needs. Or, if K’s behavior really is providing a red flag, you will come to that realization, too. I have confidence that you can figure this out!

Lucky for you, jealousy is a super hot topic in polyamory, so if you’d like to delve deeper into your feelings there is no shortage of self-help resources on the World Wide Web (like The Jealousy Workbook and this episode of Multiamory about Deconstructing Jealousy!). The number one thing I want you to remember is to please be kind to yourself on this journey — and remember to name your demons.

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