when the issue boils down to a simple question...
... everything becomes easier to manage. (note: "easier". not "easy".)
i can see them coming now, the weasels. i know exactly what kinds of situations are most likely to tip them into action, and i know exactly how they're going to react: what the urges look like, how the battle lines will draw up in my head. i can beat them down now, with a minimal amount of angst... but not completely disassociated from wanting. there's still an engagement of those short term wants, along with some degree of emotional investment in those wants, that leaves me walking away from any weasel engagement still feeling wound and wired for sound, but overall, the collateral responses are smaller, and faster-fading, than they used to be.
when you don't invest much in the wants, the wants become less important. this may seem like an Obviousism, but the most common question i'm likely to get is, "Sure, but *how* do i stop investing in the short-term want?" my answer (YMMV) was that i had to make questioning my motivations an active, conscious process, and it boiled down to asking myself one particular question: "What kind of person do I choose to be?"
no, it's not easy. i spent two consecutive evenings recently, wrestling with that simple question. a friend of mine told me, as we were talking about the complexities of open communication with one's spouse, that it often "seemed so much easier to just have an affair", and i can see how a lot of people would see the situation that way. i've been the person who has made that choice, myself. it was only easier in the short term. eventually someone found out, or i spent too much time trying to keep track of what lies went where to cover my actions - the overhead workload became more than the sex was worth in reasonably short order. investment disproportionate with return, as they say. nowadays, i find it's much simpler in the long run, for the sake of congruence, for the changes working through my homelife, to ask myself that question up front: What kind of person am i choosing to be in this situation? i'm checking my short-term actions with my long-term values, and coming up with matches more consistently than in the past.
that's a pretty amazing feeling, actually, if only at some point after the weasel-rage has flashed and faded. that flash comes from still being the kind of person who, at my core level, wants what i want, and dislikes having to police myself against acting on those wants. but the difference now is that the buy-in into standing congruent with my own stated values, is that i'm driving that state myself. i'm not adhering to my intent because i've been told i have to; matthew, by his own admission, had pretty much given up on ever being able to expect me to do anything other than whatever it was that i wanted. i think it was that sense of resignation - not fatalism, per se, but a sense of grudging understanding that he couldn't stop me from doing whatever i wanted, whether he liked it or not - that had the most profound effect on me when he told me about it.
that's the point at which i started asking myself consciously, did i want to be the kind of person who provoked that kind of sad resignation in my partner? and i found that, consistently, my answer became "no". i know where the short term wants were getting in the way of being able to earn matthew's trust - i've been teaching myself to spot the signs well enough in advance to ask myself the question before i started acting on any kind of internal decisions. it's still a difficult thing; i can still spend dinner with someone, engaging in a lively internal debate along the lines of, "now would be a really fine time to take my pants off and just pad around the kitchen in this oversized sweater and sport socks.... but i told matthew there's be no surprises while he's away for the weekend. but i'd look really cute, and it would pop my dinner date's head off... but i promised no surprises... but i don't have explicit arrangements about tonight or this person... but i didn't get explicit clearance either... but it would be fun! but it would be a surprise!.... and in the end, i don't want to be the person who disappoints matthew again, with more surprises.... okay, i'm leaving my pants on, dammnit."
because the root of this process is still a want, there's still a degree of tension that persists even after i've made my own choice. the tension is part self-denial, part exhilaration at having survived my internal test of willpower, and (as in this case) part residual arousal. it's that tension that takes a while to dissipate afterwards, that leaves me still feeling like banging my head on a rock is a reasonable option. this too, passes quickly now.
i'm drawing a lot of personal empowerment from being able to thwart myself by choice, even if the internal debate still has visceral side effects, or even has to happen at all for the foreseeable future. i'm especially finding great joy in being able to make explicit statements to someone, in the midst of that raging internal battle over why my pants are a good or bad idea, along the lines of, "I'm very interested in you, and certainly available to you - but only on my terms, and those include full disclosure to matthew, preferably in advance of the act, rather than after the fact". it's the kind of statement that includes a lot of useful, powerful information; it's also the kind of statement that will whig out people who aren't used to being approached directly, or who aren't used to being informed up front that adulterous secrecy isn't going to be the modus operandi. as opening lines go, it's probably far more disturbing to people, than being told "I'm debating whether or not to take my pants off", which (for me) is an invitational line delivered for the sole purpose of opening up the field for the weasels.
yes, i've already shared this latest advance with matthew; we've celebrated this advancement, small in and of itself, but part of the larger overall trend that's been in the works since august. he asked me last night if i felt things had changed in our relationship - a question he'd already asked me not too long ago. we've lost a lot of the tension that's been present in my mind between us since this time last year; the sense of being at loggerheads, of pushing boundaries, of forcing process work onto the table and into place, of constantly examining all the definitions and expectations that ride on the words we use - the low-grade sense of confrontation that goes with always expecting the worst - has abated. and as is always the case for me, where the tension lapses, the sense of connection - of desiring the sense of connection - fills the gap. so there's a closeness now that hasn't always been there, nor been so comfortable, since we started dating, and especially since i started lobbing bombs into the fishpond last october. there are still some visible scars we're healing, most notably in the other facet of our relationship, but the changes overall are best summed up by the easing of tensions.
it's amazing how much of a difference a single question can make.
i can see them coming now, the weasels. i know exactly what kinds of situations are most likely to tip them into action, and i know exactly how they're going to react: what the urges look like, how the battle lines will draw up in my head. i can beat them down now, with a minimal amount of angst... but not completely disassociated from wanting. there's still an engagement of those short term wants, along with some degree of emotional investment in those wants, that leaves me walking away from any weasel engagement still feeling wound and wired for sound, but overall, the collateral responses are smaller, and faster-fading, than they used to be.
when you don't invest much in the wants, the wants become less important. this may seem like an Obviousism, but the most common question i'm likely to get is, "Sure, but *how* do i stop investing in the short-term want?" my answer (YMMV) was that i had to make questioning my motivations an active, conscious process, and it boiled down to asking myself one particular question: "What kind of person do I choose to be?"
no, it's not easy. i spent two consecutive evenings recently, wrestling with that simple question. a friend of mine told me, as we were talking about the complexities of open communication with one's spouse, that it often "seemed so much easier to just have an affair", and i can see how a lot of people would see the situation that way. i've been the person who has made that choice, myself. it was only easier in the short term. eventually someone found out, or i spent too much time trying to keep track of what lies went where to cover my actions - the overhead workload became more than the sex was worth in reasonably short order. investment disproportionate with return, as they say. nowadays, i find it's much simpler in the long run, for the sake of congruence, for the changes working through my homelife, to ask myself that question up front: What kind of person am i choosing to be in this situation? i'm checking my short-term actions with my long-term values, and coming up with matches more consistently than in the past.
that's a pretty amazing feeling, actually, if only at some point after the weasel-rage has flashed and faded. that flash comes from still being the kind of person who, at my core level, wants what i want, and dislikes having to police myself against acting on those wants. but the difference now is that the buy-in into standing congruent with my own stated values, is that i'm driving that state myself. i'm not adhering to my intent because i've been told i have to; matthew, by his own admission, had pretty much given up on ever being able to expect me to do anything other than whatever it was that i wanted. i think it was that sense of resignation - not fatalism, per se, but a sense of grudging understanding that he couldn't stop me from doing whatever i wanted, whether he liked it or not - that had the most profound effect on me when he told me about it.
that's the point at which i started asking myself consciously, did i want to be the kind of person who provoked that kind of sad resignation in my partner? and i found that, consistently, my answer became "no". i know where the short term wants were getting in the way of being able to earn matthew's trust - i've been teaching myself to spot the signs well enough in advance to ask myself the question before i started acting on any kind of internal decisions. it's still a difficult thing; i can still spend dinner with someone, engaging in a lively internal debate along the lines of, "now would be a really fine time to take my pants off and just pad around the kitchen in this oversized sweater and sport socks.... but i told matthew there's be no surprises while he's away for the weekend. but i'd look really cute, and it would pop my dinner date's head off... but i promised no surprises... but i don't have explicit arrangements about tonight or this person... but i didn't get explicit clearance either... but it would be fun! but it would be a surprise!.... and in the end, i don't want to be the person who disappoints matthew again, with more surprises.... okay, i'm leaving my pants on, dammnit."
because the root of this process is still a want, there's still a degree of tension that persists even after i've made my own choice. the tension is part self-denial, part exhilaration at having survived my internal test of willpower, and (as in this case) part residual arousal. it's that tension that takes a while to dissipate afterwards, that leaves me still feeling like banging my head on a rock is a reasonable option. this too, passes quickly now.
i'm drawing a lot of personal empowerment from being able to thwart myself by choice, even if the internal debate still has visceral side effects, or even has to happen at all for the foreseeable future. i'm especially finding great joy in being able to make explicit statements to someone, in the midst of that raging internal battle over why my pants are a good or bad idea, along the lines of, "I'm very interested in you, and certainly available to you - but only on my terms, and those include full disclosure to matthew, preferably in advance of the act, rather than after the fact". it's the kind of statement that includes a lot of useful, powerful information; it's also the kind of statement that will whig out people who aren't used to being approached directly, or who aren't used to being informed up front that adulterous secrecy isn't going to be the modus operandi. as opening lines go, it's probably far more disturbing to people, than being told "I'm debating whether or not to take my pants off", which (for me) is an invitational line delivered for the sole purpose of opening up the field for the weasels.
yes, i've already shared this latest advance with matthew; we've celebrated this advancement, small in and of itself, but part of the larger overall trend that's been in the works since august. he asked me last night if i felt things had changed in our relationship - a question he'd already asked me not too long ago. we've lost a lot of the tension that's been present in my mind between us since this time last year; the sense of being at loggerheads, of pushing boundaries, of forcing process work onto the table and into place, of constantly examining all the definitions and expectations that ride on the words we use - the low-grade sense of confrontation that goes with always expecting the worst - has abated. and as is always the case for me, where the tension lapses, the sense of connection - of desiring the sense of connection - fills the gap. so there's a closeness now that hasn't always been there, nor been so comfortable, since we started dating, and especially since i started lobbing bombs into the fishpond last october. there are still some visible scars we're healing, most notably in the other facet of our relationship, but the changes overall are best summed up by the easing of tensions.
it's amazing how much of a difference a single question can make.