"Could've been this, could've been that..."

Many years ago, I was a single parent, living alone. I had been recently separated from my partner of seven years.

One evening, Jack came to visit me. Due to injuries from a traffic accident and other issues, he and I maintained minimal contact after my husband and I separated. As I recall, I knew that Jack wanted to discuss the challenging relationship he had with his current partner.  I had told him I would help and invited him to come over.

I remember the strangest things. I remember that I was making tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (because it's what I had in the house and it was the end of the month.) I made an additional can of soup and two more sandwiches. We made small talk while we ate. After dinner, I tucked my son into bed while Jack cleaned up in the kitchen.

We sat down and I gave him my advice for how to fix his relationship so he could marry the person in question. I guess my advice was useful, since he did marry the person and has a family with them.

At the end of the conversation, I told him that the only further advice I would give him would be how to end that relationship. He has never taken me up on the offer. I wouldn't make the same offer now. This is not a commentary on his current relationship. I have limited contact with him and his family. The limited contact we have had has been incredibly positive and mostly in my favor. Jack and his partner have been very generous to my husband, me and my children.

I said that because I needed to end my relationship/friendship with Jack for my own emotional health. I had hoped that we might resume our prior relationship, maybe turn it into something more. Our conversation about fixing his current relationship killed that dream.  Our association had always involved long conversations about our relationships and giving each other advice. I had just ended my own marriage. I could not reliably give advice to Jack about building his own long term relationship. I certainly couldn't give good advice if I was resentful at his partner for being the right person at the right time.

For the most part, I like to remain friends with my former romantic partners. I (usually) date wonderful people. My current husband and I were introduced to each other by Jack and another mutual friend. An ex of mine was my wedding planner. I am friends with a number of former romantic partners and their current spouses, I value these relationships, not just because I like seeing people I care about happy, but also because I get to keep them in my life.

Jack is one of the few times I ended a relationship, knowing that a friendship was unlikely to come out of it. It isn't that I didn't care about Jack. I believed that his spouse and I would not be able to have a working relationship, even friendship. It's odd to try and explain that they are the first two people I called when my husband went to the hospital. I consider them family, but we haven't managed friendship.

I have not repeated this experience in many years. I have avoided relationships where a similar dynamic was likely. I may understand why Jack and I are not friends. I even agree with it. That does not mean I don't miss our long talks and extensive writing sessions. I never wanted a repeat of this situation, it's too painful, even now. There are times when I really miss Jack. Not the current Jack, I hardly know him, but my memory of the person I think he was.

It should be pretty obvious to anyone that knows me, that this entry is inspired because I ended another relationship for the same reason. Someone I love and care about very deeply has (what I would define) as a primary relationship that has no place for me. It took over a decade, but I managed another deeply emotional relationship that has ended up hurting like hell and went on for way too long. 

I told Secondary a few days ago, that I couldn't give him any further advice except how to end his relationship with the person I consider his primary. (One of the problems is that he and this person can't agree on a definition of their relationship. I feel that has made poly negotiations impossible.) I do not know what the future holds for them (although I have guesses). However as long as Secondary is involved with Primary, I doubt we can even be friends.

The final straw was when Secondary declared last night that we were taking a two week break. He would allow no contact of any kind, not even e-mail. I have been sick, my primary has been sick and I have needed a lot of support. Secondary, who has the worst timing of anyone I have ever met, couldn't have planned this "break" better if he had intended to cause the most amount of damage possible.

I know that there is acrimony on either side of at the end of a relationship. This one has been very difficult to end. As such, I am going to list the reasons that I feel that I have no place in this relationship. I told Secondary that he had to choose Primary or me (knowing full well that he would choose her.)

I am dishing and bitching and so if you are friends with Secondary, please be warned. I am not holding back. Here is my version of the reasons that I have to end this relationship, at least until he ditches his primary. I don't want to, I still love Secondary. I just have no choice. I don't think I can even offer him my friendship.

So the reasons:

• Secondary started his relationship with Primary without discussing it with me, even though he and I had been dating for over a year. I understood because he is younger than I am and inexperienced with polyamorous relationships.  

• His primary refused to meet with me for the first year of their relationship. I understood because she is younger than I am and inexperienced with relationships in general.

• One of the reasons that Primary gave for refusing to meet with me is because I had hurt her best friend and got him kicked out of one shared venue (after he actively harassed me three years ago). This is the same friend who has kept up a sustained effort that prevents Secondary and I from comfortably attending any dance event that he is organizing because we "betrayed" him.
• Please understand that this "friend's" relationship with Secondary was less than 4 months and had been overly for nearly a year when Secondary and I got together at this "friend's" instigation. 
• I thought the friend was doing something like what I do when I want to keep people in my life. I point them towards potential partners that I think will be a positive thing in their life.
• This "friend" encourages Primary to attend events, even though she is also dating his ex. I think that he only maintains the friendship as a way to keep tabs on the ex, tabs he can't get through me or any of this other friends who told him to fucking give up already.  The only reason I have for understanding this is because I am stupid.

• About six months into this...mess, Primary asked me to give up my already scheduled weekend (a holiday weekend) so that the two of them could go camping. I did so, hoping that my gesture would pave the way to better communication. 
• It didn't work. Further, she inserted herself into my "compensation weekend" and Secondary allowed it. I ended up not going and they went  (although they didn't go "together".)
• I understood because the weekend event that Secondary and I were attending was activity that Secondary and Primary had met while doing. 
• I don't think Secondary made her aware that she was crossing a boundary. It became a source of contention for Secondary and me.

• A few months ago, Primary decided, that since I wasn't going to leave quietly, she should at least make an effort to tolerate me. We managed to have a decent in-person conversation and some good interactions. Secondary folded like a bad hand of poker and decided to let Primary and I determine all of the scheduling. It went poorly. I didn't understand and I have refused to meet with her until we could all agree to a format that included all three of us. Despite the fact that she refused to talk to me for over a year, I am the one at fault for the non-functioning polyship.

There have been a number of other issues, but the final straw was this past weekend. I know that Secondary had plans with Primary on Saturday. I know better than to ask them to cancel plans as scheduling has been an incredible source of conflict. If I was asking Secondary to help me, it was serious.

Here is what I considered serious enough to ask my Secondary to cancel his plans with his primary: My husband was sick and running a fever. My housemate and my son were recovering from the same illness. I was dealing with significant health issues related to my autoimmune disorder. The reason that support on Saturday was important was because my dog had been skunked Thursday night.

I was up until nearly 01:00 washing and cleaning by myself (the skunk happened at 10pm), I was not able to take care of removing the smell from the house. Everyone else was too sick to do anything all day Friday. Between my own issues and a long week at work (it was the final week of Advanced Placement testing and I am an AP teacher) I came home to a mess on Friday night.

Given all the recent conflict between Secondary and myself, I told him that I'd prefer to just not see him last weekend. I wasn't up to another fight about scheduling on top of everything else going on. It would suck but there were other people I could ask. Secondary decided he knew best and came over anyway, to "help". He asked if he could bring down a load of laundry.

His contribution was to do his own laundry Friday night (2 loads) and little else. He saw (and smelled) the state of the house. He saw (and heard) the coughing and general illness of the denizens of my home. After seeing all that he told me right before bed that he would be leaving early to spend the day with Primary.

I broke down that night and chose not to spend the night with him.  In the morning. I explained to him that I needed his help. I pleaded and cried. He agreed to call Primary and let her know he was cancelling. I left the room to give him some privacy. About an hour later, Secondary came out and told me that he was going to keep his plans with Primary anyway. He left me with a mess and now it was too late to reasonably ask anyone to come and help.

I e-mailed Primary and Secondary to beg them to reconsider their plans. I got no answer from either of them. I broke down and I texted some really horrible things to Secondary and called him a number of negative things. In response, he made plans to spend Sunday with Primary and her family at Maker Faire.

Secondary and I spoke about it on Monday and he agreed that what he did wasn't just being a shitty boyfriend, but he had also been a shitty friend. He admitted that plans could have been changed on Saturday. He could have helped me and gone to the fair on Sunday with Primary.

Secondary explained that when he called Primary to cancel, she explained to him that I was just crying wolf and that my problems weren't really that bad. There is disagreement over this next point, but as I understand it, she threatened him with a three-week hiatus on making plans if he cancelled on her and implied more dire consequences. She never asked me and she disregarded everything I shared in my e-mail. She made that judgement without any information from me and even giving her further context and detail, she had no interest.

I finally got a response directly from her last night. She said that Secondary's relationship with her would only be acceptable to me if it "never makes him unavailable to you in any way." I have no idea where that idea came from. I believe that I was very accommodating of their relationship on a number of occasions. I am sure she would say I am wrong.

I can only guess that my past sins negated my plea for help when I was alone with three sick people and a burgeoning migraine because of the skunk smell. (As a note, I don't get migraine headaches. I had to look it up before I knew how to treat mine.)

While Secondary apologized for Primary's response to my pleas, he also decided that he needs a two week break from me (but not her). He told me last night. Apparently I am too negative and making his life miserable because I have feelings about last weekend. By break, Secondary means absolutely no contact, no communication, nothing. He says he walked it back, but I am unclear if he just meant the starting date or cancelling the break as a whole. I decided that I was just taking the break as presented, because fuck this shit, I deserve better.

It should be noted that my husband is still recovering. I am coming down with the same damn illness (and I have to be at work until nearly 9 tonight). While Secondary said "I'm sorry", he did very little to "make up" for last weekend, even though he said he treated me like crap and without consideration when my need was clearly legitimate.

So I am writing this all down so I can't understand (fold and cave in because I do love Secondary, much to my own detriment) again.

I am airing dirty laundry (the laundry I didn't get to do on Friday night thanks to him) so  my friends will remind me that there is no place for me in this man's life. If there were, if I were actually important, last weekend would not have happened.

If Primary wanted a functioning polyship, she wouldn't have played emotional hardball. She wouldn't threaten Secondary for cancelling plans on her when the reasons were obvious to anyone who spent the night in the skunky house. Of course, he stayed in  the only room that had been spared, since the door was closed when the skunkification happened.

I am also saying publicly that nothing Jack's primary ever did comes close to the bullshit that Primary has done. If I could go back, I would kick my own ass and tell myself to try harder to maintain a friendship with Jack and his spouse. They were the same age as Primary and Secondary are now and they knew how to be supportive and understanding people even when I was a selfish little shit (in retrospect).

There are two sides to every story and I am sure if you were to discuss this with Secondary and Primary, you would hear what a horrible, selfish and awful person I am and how everything is actually all my fault. That is a regrettable reality of break ups, they get very divisive and acrimonious. I recognize that I am hurt, biased and really, really angry. Please take that into account before you judge anyone.

This relationship has been the past three years of my life. I have worked really hard to make this relationship work. I have invested a huge amount of my time, experience and understanding into accommodating Secondary and Primary while they figured things out. I have waffled and gone back and forth so many times that I know that I did this to myself.

My patience and understanding are done. I am posting this (somewhat) publicly so that my friends can kick my ass if I try to go back again. The only reason I have to talk to Secondary again is if he tells me that his relationship with Primary is over. (Well and because he lives with two friends of mine, but I can handle chilly pleasantries; part of my family is from the south.) I will not understand, I will not be patient. I will not overlook, accommodate or forgive. Secondary hurt my family and me because Primary refused a reasonable request. As long as they are together, he is nothing in my life.

Help me go gentle with myself, because all I feel right now is shock that he would treat me so badly after everything I have done for him. I feel stupid for putting it with up for as long as I have.

Today's song is a repeat of one I have posted before. I figure since Secondary has fucked me over multiple times, I get to use this song as a reference to our relationship as often as I care to do so.

*Content edited and updated for clarity and typos at 13:50 and again at 17:55"*