Wow!

So this would be the first week, in over a month, when I haven’t been tasked with working 50, 60, or 70+ hours per week fixing projects that others have screwed up and, finally, I feel like I have some room to actually breathe. And a lot has happened in that time so I’ll try to play catch-up!

Goodbye to Jinx?

Never. Even if I have to cut off all of my emotions when it comes to Jinx, I will never be able to say “good bye” to her. And, for that matter, I really suck at cutting off my emotions.

So here’s the story in a nutshell:

[nutshell] the story [/nutshell]

Hah!

Seriously, here goes the abridged version:

A few weeks prior to my starting this blog my wife, Blue, started dropping subtle hints about the eventuality of Jinx moving in with us. I generally blew those hints off and didn’t investigate further. My reasoning was simple; I didn’t believe that Blue really wanted that, that she was just saying those things in an attempt to make me feel better or to accommodate my feelings in some strange, weird, odd way. Well I was wrong.

After a couple of days of dropping hints, and after I’d already come to understand that my quest to understand my polyamorous nature was due to my knowing that I was soon to be facing the loss of my relationship with Jinx, I finally asked Blue what she was on about.

Typically when I get home from work I make my way to our bedroom and change into something comfortable like a pair of shorts. If Blue follows me in, we usually collapse on our bed for a few minutes and just talk about whatever is on our minds. It was in those moments that I would talk to Blue about polyamory. Every day, each time I would come up with something new to ponder or laugh about, I would bring it to Blue and we would discuss it. This allowed us both to ask questions of ourselves and each other with regards to poly and it was nice to be able to have a sympathetic ear and someone who at least tried to understand where the other was coming from.

In my mind, this was all about me. This was a “journey of self discovery” and any “issues” that we addressed were my issues. What can I say to that other than “sometimes I’m an idiot”?

It hadn’t occurred to me that Blue would be taking advantage of our discussions to understand things better from her point of view or to look inside of herself and how poly affected our relationship. Did I mention that sometimes I’m an idiot?

Evidently the hints that Blue had been dropping were due to the fact that the idea of having Jinx move in with us was something that had been on her mind. A lot. And she’d come to the conclusion that what would be best for all of us would be to have the three of us move in together and commit to each other as a complete triad. She’d even expressed a desire to hold a hand fasting ceremony between all three of us.

Evidently she was nuts. Or at least I assumed as much, because my immediate reaction was to try to talk her out of it. I brought up all of the difficulties of such an arrangement that I could imagine. I tried to talk some sense into her. I asked her questions that I knew she would find hard to answer such as “so what happens when I want to, on occasion, spend time alone with Jinx? I don’t know if you’re going to be able to handle that.” to which she answered “well I would have to just get over it, wouldn’t I? And you seem to forget that there’s going to be times when I want to spend time alone with her, too”. Yeah. Idiot.

Now don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that I don’t want such an arrangement. I do. Very much. But I wasn’t yet convinced that Blue was making the proposal for any reason other than trying to appease me. She has since convinced me otherwise.

We talked about it for a good while. We talked about those difficult things and we talked about the really great things too. And we talked to our kids about it.

Blue and I have a 16 year old and a 4 year old, both boys. And our family comes first in everything that we do. If it was something that our boys were unhappy about or dead set against, it wasn’t going to be something that we even approached Jinx with. At least not for now. But the boys were just fine with the idea. In fact, the 4 year old was ecstatic about the idea.

The 16 year old is very intelligent. Still, even though he’d seen Jinx spending the night in our bedroom on many occasions, he’d never quite put 2 + 2 together. Even though he knew about polyamory, specifically me being polyamorous and having feelings for Jinx, it never occurred to him that we did anything other than sleep in our bedroom. Even though he’d witnessed me going into my bathroom alone with Jinx to help her get dressed on more than one occasion, it never quite clicked into place for him. So when I talked to him about it his first question to me was “well where would she sleep?”. I was dumbfounded for a moment then told him “the same place she sleeps every time she spends the weekend, dude”. His face went from pale to bright red in the matter of a couple of seconds and it was like I could actually see reality dawning on him. “Oh” was all he said.

After a couple of minutes of letting it all sink in he looked at me and asked me “well can I still call her ‘Aunt’? I don’t know if I could think of her as my Mom just yet”. Again, I was dumbfounded for a moment then I told him “You don’t call her ‘Aunt’ right now, you call her by her first name… why should that change?” and he shrugged his shoulders and said “yeah, right, that’s true”.

I asked him, a few minutes later, how he felt about it all and he told me that he was fine with it, as long as we were happy, and that his only worry was that we were going to come up against a lot of outside trouble from people because we were doing something so out of the ordinary. His worry was in how others would treat us, that’s all. No earth shattering damage was done to his fragile young mind and, though he is very serious about being a Christian, no question of some violation of moral ethics ever entered the discussion. He was actually happy for us, in fact, though he doesn’t quite understand it all. He’s a great kid.

The 4 year old, like I mentioned, was another story altogether. When we discussed it with him, we didn’t get into very much detail. We asked him how he would feel about Jinx and her son moving in and all of us being one big family. He was excited and very much for the idea so we left it at that. But never underestimate the intelligence of a toddler. Over the next few days he would say things, every now and then, about how “Aunt Jinx” was going to be his “other Mom” and how her son was going to be his new brother. He would ask me questions about events to come such as Jinx and I picking him up from school (he doesn’t start school until August). Hell, he’s already started making plans. Maybe that says something about society, as a whole, and our views on monogamy that a 4 year old child who hasn’t been trained, yet, had no trouble accepting and loving the concept of having two moms and a dad… but that’s another post I guess.

Anyway, the boys were fine with it all so we decided to approach Jinx with the idea.

We eventually did and she didn’t say “no”. She didn’t say “yes” either, but… well… it’s complicated.

And who the hell was I kidding with that “abridged version” bullshit? I can’t ever sum things up without feeling that I’m doing myself and anyone bothering to read it all an injustice.

And it’s nearly time for me to get on the road so I suppose I’ll have to hold off telling the rest of the story for another day.

So, with that, I’ll leave you with

To be continued…