Your Daily Polyamory Blog for Navigating Life, Relationships, and More
You can do a lot with words, that’s for sure, but they’re not enough. No matter how hard you try to be careful about what you say, no matter how carefully you select your words, it’s so easy for them to hit the person you’re talking to the wrong way.
For them to be misinterpreted. » Read more
I’ve known so many people over the years who really seem to all believe one thing: As long as you don’t complain about something aloud, you aren’t really upset about it. And because you’re not really upset about it, nothing will happen.
And most importantly, they won’t have to deal with the fact that you were upset. » Read more
It is always happening whenever I talk to my mother.
She’ll say something petty and ungrateful. Someone will have done something nice for her. Something that was clearly well intended. Came from a good place. But because the gesture wasn’t perfect, wasn’t what she would have envisioned in the best of all possible worlds, » Read more
“I liked your piece about testing self-beliefs instead of accepting or rejecting them outright,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say. “It’s something that’s always been hard for me to articulate, but it was really the only way to move through my divorce without steering off too hard in either direction. I had to learn moderation more intentionally; » Read more
I used to be a big believer in a cardinal relationship rule: Never go to bed angry.
The idea of this was that if you get into a relationship argument, no matter the time of day, you should resolve your disagreement before you and your loved one retire for the night.
Depending on the time of day, » Read more
It’s funny the things we tend to romanticize. A lot of folks romanticize danger. Living on the edge. The thrill of hunting something precarious. Finding someone who’s hard to get. Hard to keep.
There’s a rush in the conquest, they want us to believe.
And for a long while, I thought that was where it was at. » Read more
When I was a very little girl, very little, before I went into kindergarten, I would sometimes fall asleep downstairs on the couch.
And instead of waking me up and telling me to go up to my own bed, when I was this little, my father would instead pick me up and carry me. » Read more
I’m flustered again, mystified by the inexplicably bad behavior of someone else.
It’s not just disappointing behavior, mind you; it verges on the absurd.
I share this with a friend of mine. He thinks for a moment, before saying, “What you have to remember, Page, is that most people have the emotional regulation of a flea.” » Read more
I’m not saying I don’t have a mean streak.
I do.
I’m absolutely capable of saying unkind things. Being insulting, cruel.
And when that mean streak is activated, I’ve been known to wound with words. The same mental systems that write love poetry or give grand compliments can easily be turned into a kind of war machinery. » Read more
2011
“Be careful,” she told me.
“Oh?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“I know you’re crazy about this guy, but it’s all so new,” she said.
I smiled. “Yeah, I get that. I know all about New Relationship Energy. I know what that feels like.” New Relationship Energy (or NRE) is a term for the biochemical state that your body enters when you’re first falling in love, » Read more
