Preemptive Strike

Halley is away at college for a few days before I get there, and, as always, separation makes me a little nervous. But it's been a whole lot easier this specific time around because xe's been reassuring me by giving a blatant statement of how xe loves me regardless of where we are or what we're doing. And it's working. I feel really relaxed, and, if I can tell you a secret, I think I'm not even going to need it anymore after I just did it. My irrational fear of losing halley is evaporating. I'm not so scared clingy, which was taking a toll on our relationship. And now it's gone! All I had to do was indulge my desire to be reassured and it disappeared.

Conflict Resolution

I felt sad. We made mistakes. And we talked them out. That's not to say that there weren't bumps along the way. That's not to say we didn't have a kind of difficult time with it. I was hurting. I made some mistakes. Calling it unable to be made up for to xyr.

But Halley and I? We don't just break up over something so silly. It was a mistake for her, what instigated it, and we've established the underlying reasons for the desire. I made a mistake, that was to tell xyr it was such a big deal. The point is, we talked it out. Unwillingness and pain aside, we made it through discussing it and we made each other feel better.

This is what makes or breaks a relationship. The way these situations get handled. And we handle them beautifully. The love we have is why we're here. It's why we want to be close and in contact. The love we have makes all of the bad times worth it, but the way we react and feel about each other when things hurt is what ensures we stay together in the moment. We always love each other. No matter what happens, I know I will always be loved and that I will always love my halley

Open

Our relationship is open, but with the understanding that it hurts me when xe does anything sexual with anyone else. I thought xe wouldn't do anything anymore, but, well, I'd never say that xe couldn't. I wouldn't take away the right to consent. Yesses and nos are both important parts of consensual actions. I'm just hurt now.

I feel sad. I knew the practical wasn't right for me. And I thought it wasn't right for us. Xe said, or at least implied as much. But, well, here we are. Yet again. Xe's been with someone else. Again. And I'm sad. Disappointed. Upset. Hurt. I feel alone. I wish that xe hadn't done this. But I've no right to be mad or anything. Thinking back on it, xe never promised not to. Just implied xe wouldn't. Implications and technicality mean I'm the one in the wrong here.

I'm nor sure how much I like my life right now. Earlier today, I thought everything was great. Was in a good mood for a long time. Now, I don't know. I kind of feel empty, sort of hollow and broken. I kind of want to sleep, but I also feel wired, so no sleep for me. I want an escape. I hate this place. I don't want this to be my life. I guess it is.

Xe's implied and promised again and again to stop. xe never does.  I promised not to leave. That it wouldn't be a deal breaker.  Plus, I love xyr. I want xyr to love me.

My Unease About Abuse

I have all of these issues that pop up when I hear about abuse, especially emotional abuse. I get worried really easily that I'm somehow being an abuser accidentally. I suppose I'm worried that I'm so needy and prone to being upset that I'm making the relationship all about myself. I get worried any time someone contrasts it with  a more abusive relationship, because I'm afraid it's downplaying and rationalization. I love my halley so much that I start to feel like every little move is important, and I worry about her. Now, don't get me wrong. This irrationality is not because of my love, rather, my love combined with my general sense of low self esteem. This problem is hard to shake, but I'm getting better.

You see, I can look at all of the wonderful times we have together, and I can see that we giggle and play and be together. We talk about everything, we trust each other, and I can see how safe I make xyr feel. We know each other, on big issues and small, and we get along on so many levels. We We give affection and we always try to be so good to each other. And, of course, we have mindblowing kinky sex, with huge focus on the most important thing: consent.

 And when we do have problems? well, we talk them out. Sometimes, I'm a little reluctant at first, but, again, I'm not perfect and I'm working on this. I'm doing really well, I might add. We communicate. We tell each other how we feel, as openly and honestly as we know how. We usually fill in the form of "I am feeling _______ because __________________________________" and it works. We feel better soon. And, on top of that, most, if not all, of our issues stem from the desire to be good to each other and feeling of failing, or a simple miscommunication (almost always my fault, by the way. [but that doesn't mean I'm bad, or ruining the relaitonship] Halley takes things literally, and I mess with them by adding the connotations of words and silly things.) Problem resolution happens quickly, if I don't lose my head, and then it's back to snuggles and kisses and discussions of the state of the world and how to help the underpriveleged (We have a project coming up!! I'm excited, but more on that later!) and hugs and namics and games and sex and argumentation and writing our blogs together.

So, I guess what I mean to say is that, despite all of this, sometimes, I get scared in the deepest corner of my mind that I'm an accidental abuser. Lately, though, I've been able to get into that corner and show my mind the above mention of how my relationship works. And, however prone I am to feeling uneasy, I know with the most logical parts of me that my relationship with halley is healthy.

Abuse?

This is currently a meditations post. I will reorganize it more logically to make sense at a later date.

I have been abused. I think. Mildly. Emotionally. Physically, only by spanking. My dad is a jerk. But is he an abuser? I think so. I mean, he always made me feel like I wasn't worth it. His time. His effort. He got mad when I couldn't do things right. He taunted me when I failed. He let me chose things only to call my choices stupid.

I used to get to pick where to eat. That was one of the common events. And every time, I managed to pick wrong. He'd tell me I could pick anywhere I wanted, then, as soon as I did "well except there! What kind of idiot would pick there to eat in the first place?!" The same was true of picking out toys when there were different types, such as electronics. I remember wanting a pink and blue handheld CD player when I was maybe 7, and he called me every name in the book, and my choice a ridiculous waste of money, because there was one that would play better quality and hold up better that was plain grey and black. I should've gotten that one.

But so many of those things, he was right about. It was a bad idea to get a CD player for aesthetics. It's more the way he went about it. The red in the face, vein popping yelling he did about these things. I was a child and I wanted pretty things. And that made him so mad. It's not that he told me mcdonalds wasn't a good meal every night, or that I should get something that works rather than something that's pretty, it's that he yelled at me, implicitly called me stupid and an idiot, and that he made me feel like I wasn't worthwhile.

I was spanked. It was pretty hard, but it wasn't common. It was usually for particularly dangerous things, like the time I crossed a road with only a 7 year old when I was 6. It made me feel pretty miserable, but I generally accepted it as a fact of life.

I don't know. I don't think these things are bad enough to count as abuse. They instilled in me a sense of helplessness, and a reluctance to make choices. They made me second guess my every decision in a relationship, and made me feel like one wrong move can change me from just being Brittany to being some total idiot who can't say anything worth listening to.

My Diary

I kept a diary for a long time in my life. Now that's essentially been replaced by my blog, since my parents cannot find my blog and punish me for it anymore (well, very soon they can't, and I figured a month of hell was worth the cool new outlet for my feelings.) But I kept the first one starting in 6th grade. I call it my "book of lies" (like the bible!) because it's full of me lying to myself as I lied to my friends about my own sexual orientation. But my next one was totally, 100% unflinchingly honest with myself. I kept this was beginning in April of 2009, right up through december 2009, and then a few times scattered through the next year, almost skipping an entire year. This cataloged my time through the first time I had sex and a few other interesting times. Either way, it showed what a real baby I am inside, to myself. I never, ever, ever thought I'd let anyone read it. Least of all halley, because I was so embarrassed by the way I think.

So, naturally, yesterday, halley sat on my hips and read me my own diary. Completely adoringly, as if I shouldn't be ashamed of anything in it. Of how childish I sound or of how silly my concerns were. And I shouldn't. I know better now than I did then that my halley will never find some part of me that means we just can't be together. those were honestly my deepest thoughts and the only thing I had left to be embarrassed if xe saw. So, I feel a little better about our relationship now. I have proof, that, seeing every bit of me, halley is never going to find me not good enough for xyr.

I know it took a long time for me to realize. I practically had to be beaten over the head by the fact that my halley loves me. No matter what. And I love xyr too. On my deepest level, I love her. And xe read that in my diary. I feel happy. Like I have somehow proven to myself that we will work. And, with all the communication skills and loving, soft, exciting touching to back it up, I feel happy