after ashtree and guthrie left yesterday, ben and i sat down to talk. since he and cricket broke up in february, neither of us has had much going on in other relationships. he had a couple of flings in the spring, with eve and greenwitch and maybe folks i don't know about, too. i have had a couple of overnight visits with ropesguy during that time, and one night with the poet and about one hour <eyeroll> with ron. we just haven't had a lot of prompting to re-discuss and redefine our boundaries. it was an amazing conversation, needed for months. (i wish i understood why it's so hard for us to start talking - once we do, we talk and talk and talk, but sometimes we go weeks, even months, without getting there.

we talked about our shared comfort in being partners - and our shared discomfort at being perceived as a "couple". we agreed to keep open a conversation about how to change that perception in ways that doesn't feel like it denies or diminishes the value of our relationship. one of his reasons for not wanting to be perceived as a couple, socially, is that he doesn't want to hurt cricket, and that's a bit hard for me to hear, though i understand it and i also don't wish to hurt her.

we talked about what we do and don't want to share about our other relationships. (tell each other as much or as little as we like, no obligation to share, but to feel free to share because we both feel good about hearing as well as about giving each other privacy.)

we talked about how important it is to us to let our relationship be what it is, and yet also his concern that we'll let that philosophy push us into putting up with things we shouldn't. his concern is mostly for me here - he is afraid that i will put up with shit i shouldn't, and he always apologizes for doubting my strength. it's a valid concern. <shrugs> we'll keep working on it.

we talked about his continuing discomfort over the current state of our living together. i think i finally figured out how to articulate my feelings on it in a way that i think he really heard. i was talking about all of the amazing gifts i have received from him - and how giving him a place to live and food to eat and buying him smoke isn't about paying him back for the emotional and spiritual gifts i get from him, but when the giving is happening on such a deep level, it stops being about giving and receiving, it stops being about exchange, it just becomes coexisting.

we talked about how important it is that we turn outward for support instead of leaning on each other for our sole support. that's why i've started trying to talk to other folks. it's why i'm sharing what happened with me on friday with selected friends i talk to. it's why i'm going to start counseling at the women's resource center on wednesday.

we talked about his relationship with cricket and mine with the kids' father, about our poly fuckups and our poly successes. we talked about the fact that we don't need to use anybody's labels or look like anybody else's relationship, that we don't need to carry forward from other relationships the things that didn't work. we get to not just color outside the lines, we get to draw our own picture, write our own story, and we can start on a fresh page every day if we want, we can keep what works and blow off the rest.

i told him that i knew it was going to be hard for me to work with knowing he was being sexual with someone else if we aren't going to become sexual again. and then i told him that i don't want that to mean he doesn't tell me if he wants to. i told him that i'm acknowledging, to myself and to him, that i will probably going to be hurt by that, but that i don't want him to avoid that because i need to work with that, i want to work with that. i say i want our relationship to be what it is. i either need to work through my shit until that's true, until i can be truly satisfied with us being sexual or not, regardless of whether he's with other folks, or i need to own up to the fact that i can't really do that, and we need to renegotiate.

one thing i like that we defined was, do we mention, or when do we mention, a new crush/sweetie? the answer turned out to be, no obligation to do so, but it's just common courtesy to let each other know if a new person is coming along that's going to have an effect on our dynamic, like taking up significant amounts of the time we've normally been spending together.

we talked about commitments, and i told him that the only commitment i want from any of my partners is that they'll keep working with me to keep our relationship healthy for as long as it's working for us, and that we'll work on things if that seems right, or let it go if it's time.

i also told him, when we talked about my desire for him to be open with me as much as he wants to be, that i'm not saying it won't ever be awkward and i'm not saying i won't ever be jealous. but i am saying that i will own my awkwardness and my jealousy, that i will acknowledge it so i can work with him on it.

it's all a bit hard for him to believe, he thinks i'm too good to be true, because i say all the right things....but so did cricket, at first. he knows i'm not her, and that so far i've demonstrated that i'm for real...but his experiences with cricket were very REAL.

so, we just have to try it.

there's more to discuss - my reminder list of things to talk about includes how we handle overnights apart, how we divide time with other loves and still give our relationship enough of our time and energy, how we handle scenes where we are in the same space as each other and our other sweeties (this will also need to be discussed with our other sweeties!), and more talking about sex.

i'm nervous about the sex part. and maybe a bit about the overnights and time division conversations, just because i think those are going to feel like autonomy issues to him, because of past issues in his relationship with cricket.

damn, i've gotta go to work.