Surprising Feelings

I have been experiencing some surprising feelings in the past week or two. They are feelings that, when J and I opened up almost two years ago, I would have never expected.

1. Feeling jealousy from other partners being with other partners of their own. I have talked with friends who have experienced this before, and J has experienced this, too. Typically, I have heard this jealousy expressed as a fear of replacement. Because I am a secondary partner to someone else, there might be a fear that I am much more easily replaced by someone new. For me, though, I experienced a really yucky form: possessive jealousy (hey! that's my secondary/other partner!). Luckily, because that feeling was so nasty, I was able to quickly push it out. Also, surprisingly to myself, I have experienced some exclusion jealousy in relation to other partners. That jealousy is very familiar to me in thinking about J with another partner, but it took me by surprise when it happened with another partner. Again, I am grateful that the feeling wasn't very intense and it blew over pretty quickly. Not only did it blow over quickly, but I was able to replace it with feelings of compersion and happiness. Having all of those feelings swirl around and change like that in the span of 30 minutes was pretty amazing. And kind of tiring.

2. I have been crushing really hard on someone. And so when I made out with a girl recently, I felt like I was cheating!! So crazy. Maybe it was more of the fact that my crush has been taking a ton of my emotional and cognitive processes; I think about my crush all of the time. And so when I experienced another person and their energy, I was taken by surprise and almost felt like I was betraying my crush. You would think with all of my thinking on what monogamy and nonmonogamy means, and what cheating means, and how control and freedom play a role in all of that, that I would not have feelings like this. And yet, they rose to the surface of my mind from some weird place in my brain.

3. And, unrelated to our relationship, I have been getting a little tired of stripping. I am just ready to be doing something else with my time. I still really enjoy it while I am doing it, and I would miss it if I completely stopped. But I started it with a lot of self-interest in mind, and it has definitely fed me on a lot of levels. But I am ready to be doing something that serves others in a larger, more holistic way. I knew that at some point I would want to stop, but I have been feeling surprised anyway that I am getting a bit weary of it.