A Little Reset Adventure!

 

Although I’m proud of how well I’ve taken care of myself in the two weeks since The Shy One breakup (Two weeks ago yesterday. I can still hear him (Pretty understandably!) hissing It’s Monday morning to my latest round of tears and worries.) it’s been really, REALLY hard, maybe especially on my friendship with BFF-Formerly-Sweetie.

I couldn’t figure out how to get the tears out on my own, so I would call her and cry—pretty standard best friends stuff, except that we’re also ex-wives. Having tried so hard and, according to my Depression Brain, “failed” with The Shy One, the grief got tangled up with having “failed” to be Sweetie’s wife. The guilt and shame of letting go of these two big relationships that were/are so dear was overwhelming.

The way Depression Brain puts it: “Here are these two wonderful people who tried so hard to love me and I just couldn’t let them. Am I incapable of being loved?”

I felt like I was letting down BFF all over again. I felt like I was letting down all the friends and family I’d talked to about the relationship. It even felt like I’d let down my friendly next door neighbor, because she’s friends with Mrs. Shy One. Of course she is. That lady is everywhere.

Anyway, after HOURS of listening to me over the past two weeks and also twenty years, BFF let slip that she doesn’t believe polyamory exists at all. I was…done confiding. All of her years of polyphobia and biphobia came back and I thought (Pretty unfairly) “Oh of course I hate myself. This bitch has hated part of me for the last twenty years.”

It would be fun and easy to blame her and be mad, but I can’t. A pattern came back like an unwelcome friend and I was about to step into it for a self-hating kind of comfort.

Yes, it’s shitty of her to deny a whole way of being that brings so many people so much joy and fulfillment, but she was mostly just mad at The Shy Ones for hurting me so badly. And because it’s probably a lot of stress to keep fielding tearful calls. And probably also because of all the pain I caused her during our mono/poly marriage years. And because she’d hurt me so much then too.

I’ve spent ten months trying to be what The Shy One wanted me to be so I didn’t have to say goodbye. I can see the echo of my marriage in that (mostly unasked for) grim determination.

So instead of going another round with BFF, I just put it all down. I asked for a friendship break. No calling a million times a day. No relying on her to explain things I could easily Google for myself.

And huh. As soon as I made that decision, my loneliness felt halved! It feels liberating to act like I’m genuinely single instead of reenacting the role of Full Time Disappointer.

So yesterday I asked if we could make this pause into a more permanent friendship change! We’ll still hang once a week but the dependency needs to end. I’m curious and optimistic to see what the next phase of our friendship might look like! And I haven’t sobbed in like two days!