ending my partnership with B / feeling like partnership is not for me
so, that thing that I mentioned I told Viv (and I also told Ash), which is hard to put into words -- I'm gonna try. Even though I just kinda wanna scream and flail, I'm so confused and conflicted.
Recently I realized that I don't want to be partnered anymore. And it's not really about B [my partner]; I've been pretty satisfied with us lately. It's just that the original motivations for being partners are no longer existent, and I don't have any good current motivators (my only motivations would be emotional safety and financial security, and those are not strong needs for me).
When we first made vows to each other we were very different people, and when we got legally married it was because B wasn't comfortable having sex unless we were legally married, and because I was afraid that without some external tie, I would be abandoned -- neither of us saw being lovers-without-life-committment as a possibility. As we developed our marriage into a true partnership, we had goals of what we wanted to create together -- we had both assumed we'd adopt children, and/or that we'd run a tiny aid center for teenage parents (perhaps adopting their kids if they didn't want to keep or abort). And those things still appeal to me but they don't feel like they're the right path for me (at least, not at this point) and B doesn't want kids.
I feel like the point of a partnership is to create something together; to have a mutual goal which is nurtured by the partnership. I don't feel like B and I have mutual goals, and I think we have grown as much as we can in the partnership. I think I learned a lot from it and I think it was absolutely the right choice for us, but I feel like it has come to a natural end (or pause, perhaps). I still want to be with B, but not in the context of partnership.
I feel that a partnership is about balancing yourself with someone else and considering choices with the question "what is best for us?" and (at least for now) I need to consider choices with the question "what is best for me?" I might want to live with/near lovers, but I need more freedom. I need to be able to fuck up spectacularly and not worry about the fallout for anyone but myself. I need to be more open. I need to be wild. I need to be completely free.
I'm not sure if I will ever want to be partners with anyone again. I'm feeling more and more like that is not for me. I almost feel like it is a personal calling of sorts to be... alone, in that sense. I have this vision of my heart and my living space as this place where people can come and go, stay as long as they like or just stop in. Ever since I was a little kid I dreamed about having my own place and living alone. I wasn't the kind of little girl who daydreamed about a wedding followed by husband and kids -- I daydreamed about living alone in a world all of my own making, always with a house big enough for having plenty of visitors but with a whole floor all to myself. Plenty of animal friends but no person who shared a claim on my space (even if they were a long-term guest). I gave up this dream to be with B because I loved zir, but now I'm realizing that I can have true, deep love without giving up that dream, that part of myself.
Unfortunately I may lose B. Ze's having a really hard time with this because ze can't imagine being lovers without being partners... and polyamory is difficult for B. I think on some level my relationship with Aurilion wasn't real for B, ze managed to essentially ignore it -- but my relationship with Viv seems more real to B, maybe because it's not long distance. But B goes back and forth, telling me one day that ze's totally fine with it, and the next day that ze just can't handle it. And at some point I have to conclude that ze's never going to be okay with it and that it is NOT just about external disapproval no matter what ze says (some people are just made for monogamy, I think, and I really wonder if B may be), but I'm not sure when that point is. At the latest that point will be January, because I have decided that I am going back to school in the spring. I really have no idea what is going to happen between now and then. If B decides that ze is comfortable just being lovers and wants to continue living close, I'd love if ze went back to school too and we got adjoining rooms in a dorm, but if ze gets a job offer in FL ze may take it. I feel that I'd be okay with either choice. I'd miss B a lot if we broke up but it wouldn't crush me. I'd lose zir company and the amazing love we make and all the security and comfort we have together but I'd gain the ability to be more fully myself.
We were talking about it tonight and ze said that ze was torn -- that there was a part of zirself who was free and comfortable with polyamory and being lovers without being partners, and there was another part that was just wrapped up in fear of what people (zir family, zir coworkers) would think. But I'm not sure it's just that because ze also talked about feeling like ze would have to compete with my lovers for my affections -- though ze made the point that it could conceivably be that ze was worried that people would compare zir and my other lovers, not necessarily that ze was worried that I would make the comparisons, or that ze would. I think this is something we'll have to talk about a lot more and it's pretty exhausting. Which is part of the reason I wanna go slow with Viv, because I'm not going to have the energy to fling myself head over heels right now, though certainly part of me wants to.
And I'm amazed that I'm not going mad with the uncertainty. Apparently my lesson this year is to become comfortable with uncertainty.