How my relationship derailed completely… and got back on track
James and I met at karaoke. To this day I have no better explanation than the stars aligning or divine intervention. What are the odds of two polyamorous people meeting at a mainstream party in a rather conservative town? But we did. Soon, we would spend hours messaging, then dating. With every moment we spend together we’d discover more similarities, more of how well we matched. We’d spend many summer nights wild camping, finding time to see each other and wrap ourselves in the cocoon of our new love. It was bliss.
But of course, there were problems, too. Any relationship has its challenges and when you’re polyamorous they tend to become double trouble. And grow exponentially with the number of unresolved issues of all the people involved. We were no different. Within months I developed levels of anxiety I hadn’t experienced since I was in my late teens. What the hell was happening?
Although even my sceptical ass would call James my soul mate, I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was my life. I still had my sports, my friends, my hobbies, my business. I was going to all sorts of new events and meeting new people. And yet… and yet my emotional state revolved around the joy of being with C. and the anxiety of not being with him. In the meantime, his other relationship was straining as well, bleeding into ours. Meetings got canceled last minute. Plans would change more often than not. I would schedule my entire life around our plans, trying to be the flexible one. While my craving for some stability between us was getting the better of me. Fights. More fights. Complicated conversations. Exhaustion.
As both relationships started to ask more and more from James, he got tired of the drama and made his choice. He left. Leaving me to pick up the mess I’d made of my life.
Why not me?
It was June. The sun was shining. I was struggling to make it through the day. Things would go well as long as I could distract myself from the loss. When I couldn’t, I would feel empty. Useless.
The most important lesson I got from that period is this: James was my compass and my anchor. And with him leaving, I was all over the place. My body revolted as well. Up to a point when I was hanging out at the park and suddenly felt stomach pain of a level I’d never experienced before. All I could do was curl up in a ball on the grass. I couldn’t even cry or talk. I could only feel, all of it.
Two hours later the pain went away. I got up and slowly started getting my life together. I’d like to say I had some great insight in those hours of pain— I hadn’t. I guess my body had just released all of the tension and was ready for healing. And so, I made my first hesitant steps to moving on.
The great insight arrived a month later.
A friend and former lover of mine, Neil, told me his relationship had just ended. He was hurting. For this girl, he’d made the exception of going steady, something he wasn’t willing to do. And in a flash of curiosity, I asked him the question that changed my life:
“Why did you want to go steady with her but not me?”
Now if this question sounds passive-aggressive: it wasn’t. I didn’t want to be with Neil, either. But I did spot a pattern: men in my life weren’t struggling with commitment per se. They were struggling with commitment to me.
Luckily, Neil took the question as I meant it. “She… well, we just had all the same life goals. She wanted the same things I did.”
Oh. Okay.
Well, that’s not much help at all. Or… is it?
For the first time in my life, I asked myself: apart from James, what do I want?
I had no answer.
No wonder! No wonder men couldn’t commit to me. No wonder ending my relationship with James felt like the end of the fucking world. No wonder I felt like I had lost my anchor and my compass.
They were the only ones I had.
And now I’d seen what happens when my compass and anchor depend on someone else.
Chasing my vision
As usual, it’s asking the right question that can suddenly get you unstuck. Even though it still takes effort. As I asked myself: “What do I want?” I wasn’t hit with divine inspiration. I didn’t have all the answers. But I did have something to work towards. I began rediscovering myself. Vision boarding. Asking myself: what does my best self look like? What does my best life look like? And what do I need to do to make that happen? It was these questions that helped me build my personal foundation. One that would be strong enough to survive storms.
As it goes when issues are truly resolved, James and I got back together soon after. On very different terms. He was no longer the center of my life. I was living my dreams. And he was welcome to tag along for as long as our visions overlapped.
My new vision lifted a lot of pressure off our relationship. He was free to have his priorities. To even cancel plans. To do whatever he wanted. But I would no longer sit around waiting or go out of my way to make his life easier. I would live for my vision, not for our relationship. And as a result, I no longer had to resent him.
Real life is not a fairy tale. And so, no, this wasn’t the end of our challenges. Hell, it wasn’t even the last time he left me. But from this moment on, whatever came my way or whatever left — I felt grounded enough to keep living my best life. With or without him.
(And if you don’t think that’s a happy ending… we did manage to resolve our issues and build a healthy relationship, which is where we are now. That took a lot of soul-searching from both of us. And there are no guarantees. But I can say with absolute certainty: if I hadn’t defined my vision for my life, our relationship wouldn’t have made it to where it is today.)
