#cheating is resolved with polyamory but none of them know what polyamory is because it's the 1970's

[flightlessfinch]

here's a jegulily snippet from my new fic:

"You don't know me, so stop acting like you do."

"You think I don't know you by now?" James looked up at him, his expression was distant.

"What do you know about me, Potter?" Regulus turned away from him. He looked at his bedside table. Scribbled notes from his friends were pinned to the wall. There was a family picture in a little frame, perfect Potter's parents, his mother touching his hair, his father smiling. Radiating ease. Radiating love. Of course he kept his family at his bedside. Was there any part of his life that wasn't perfect other than Regulus? Him and his misery casting his dark shadow in a world of nothing but light. Next to it there was a little polaroid of him holding Lily in the sun, both of them laughing and staring into each other's eyes. A messy girlish scrawl on the bottom: Summer '76. Regulus picked up the polaroid, such a flimsy little thing, between two of his long fingers. He held it like a playing card.

"Regulus..." James sighed and covered his face with his hands like he was very very tired.

"Why do you keep this here? Just to torture yourself?" James grasped for the picture and Regulus moved it just out of his reach. "No. Look at her."

"I look at her everyday," he complained. Exhaustion in his bones.

"Look at her, and look at me." Regulus held the picture up beside his face, like Lily was looking right past James, right at him. She saw him everyday in the corridors. Did she suspect? Would she ever know about this? "You can't just have one, can you? You want both." James stared at him, silent as a stone. He wanted this conversation to be over. Too bad. "This is the kind of greed they say is sinful in the bible."

"Are you going to tell me to break up with her again?" Regulus sat cross-legged on the floor at James' feet and traced a fingertip over Lily's pretty, elfin face. Her upturned nose, her red eyelashes. She was everything he was not. How could James stand it? He'd felt the intensity of his hunger for him, for his body, all of its sharp edges, muscle and bone. How could he reach into the softness, the sweetness, of this woman when she was so different from what he truly desired?

"You don't deserve her. You deserve me. It's a bit unfair, isn't it?"

"You think you deserve me?" His incredulity was probably supposed to be insulting. Regulus didn't see it that way.

"No, but you deserve me. I treat you exactly the way I think you deserve to be treated, Potter."

"You're a terrible person."

"So are you." Regulus touched the picture of Lily again, then kissed her pretty face. A gentle kiss, one James had never gotten.

[professorspork]

today in the Andromeda Galaxy, I EXPERIENCED EXTREME EMOTIONAL DURESS

so, to recap, though I’ve said this before: i’m heartbroken and highkey dramatic over the fact that this game is making me choose between Jaal and Peebee when JAAL AND PEEBEE HAVE CRUSHES ON EACH OTHER AND I HAVE CRUSHES ON THEM AND THEY HAVE CRUSHES ON ME. like. this game came out in 2017, people had definitely heard of polyamory by then!!!

the thing about Peebee is that her whole “I’m a tough cookie, I don’t need anyone, don’t look at my actually because I tripped and expressed a feeling, no one’s ever been there for me like you” spiel is my kryptonite. but. the thing about Jaal is that we never should have met! we are aliens not just from different systems, but from across dark space. for Ryder to travel all this way, not knowing what she wanted from life, and then to meet this person who also felt directionless and unfulfilled... for them to meet each other, and go oh, there you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. LIKE!!! that shit is so epic, and so thematically important to the way I’m playing my Ryder... I decided ages ago to romance Jaal this time around, but then stopped playing this game for like two weeks in part because it was Thanksgiving and I was busy, in part to focus on that kristanna WIP, but mostly-- MOSTLY!!-- because I knew I’d have to make the final choice, and Helen’s been torturing me by saying “wow you’re gonna break Peebee’s heart.”

the initial plan was to play Peebee’s loyalty mission and flirt with her more then, to get the most out of it, then lock in with Jaal, then do her last little scene.

things... did not go according to plan.

first I finished Cora’s loyalty bonus scene, where she accidentally quoted Hamilton a lot and we threw seeds into the air as though that’s what gardening is. that was really sweet. I took out the Kett outpost on Eos while we were there, and then Vetra told me about her prized ugly lamp she’s still looking for, and that was great. so I was like, great, let’s do Vetra’s close-out scene next!

READER, I MADE A MISTAKE

I was all set to be like ‘ha ha, I used the jump jets, I cheated’ and then Vetra reached for my hand and asked me is this real? about all the (EXTREMELY G-RATED) flirting I’d been doing and I had to say NO, I THOUGHT WE WERE PLAYING AROUND like some kind of MONSTER. I legit did not realize I’d flirted enough with Vetra that we’d have to have this conversation, and I was so traumatized by the whole ordeal i was like I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN FOLLOW THE PLAN

so I played it cool. I calmed down. I checked in on Avitus on the Nexus and did a toast with the other Pathfinders. I went to Elaaden and learned Dr. Aden was FAKING being Saelen to trick me, and we got Poc back. But then Peebee started ranting about how it had opened up the Kalinda wounds again and she still cares and this is what happens when you let people in, and oh no she’s letting me in, and despite The Plan I could not bring myself to flirt/sleep with her knowing the decision I’d already made

mortified at myself, I hightailed it to Havarl to lock in with Jaal. I WAS SO NERVOUS I FUMBLED THE CONTROLLER TRYING TO INTERRUPT TO HUG HIS MOM AND DIDN’T HUG HER. but like, I gotta say.... after all that build-up I’m kinda disappointed? not in Jaal, he was a perfect dork prince for every moment and he said I MAKE HIS HEART SING and told me how he took things apart as a kid (GEE WHO DOES THAT SOUND LIKE THAT I KNOW) and showed me his glow in the dark sticky star set. but the Ryder reactions and dialogue choices just felt extremely underwhelming-- like ‘yeah okay we might as well do this.’ THIS IS NOT A YEAH OKAY MIGHT AS WELL SORT OF LOVE STORY, BIOWARE, WTF. it killed me to watch Ryder be so blase about it after I’d agonized for literal weeks over how to do this. 

but I digress. it’s fine, and now his mom sends me cute emails and he calls me darling one when we part ways

with that done, I did the meat of Peebee’s loyalty mission, which was a lot of fun (but not quite as fun as Liam’s). the initial set-up with the hijacked pod (THE SAFETY BARS WON’T FIT OVER DRACK) was hilarious, and once again, like with Vetra’s and Jaal’s before that, I felt REAL FEAR over my interrupt choices. in this case, I chose to shoot Kalinda, because uh fuck her frankly she’s the bitch who broke Peebee’s heart and I won’t feel bad about it, she was an awful person and an abuser. but to hear Peebee be so torn up about it after... SHE TRIES SO HARD TO PUT ON A TOUGH COOKIE FRONT BUT SHE’S SUCH A SOFTIE. I CAN’T. I CANNOT. when she was like “now where will I sleep?” i was very sad to realize the flirt option, unavailable to me, probs would have been like “well my bed is free” and sadly none of the other options were “i’m sure Liam’s terrible, terrible couch is available.”  AND THEN SHE SENT ME AN EMAIL PROMISING TO BE MORE OF A TEAM PLAYER. friends i am so sad i cannot romance her too, i can’t emphasize that enough i really can’t. and I can’t even romance her next time because I’ve already decided my next Ryder is going to be a whiny pissbaby dude who can’t handle the pressure and that Ryder certainly will not deserve her

then I went to do a few errands on Kadara, and I brought Peebee and Jaal with me because of course I did, and they talked about whether or not asari and angarans can reproduce because SURE, WHY WOULDN’T THEY, THIS GAME HASN’T TORTURED ME ENOUGH. I wrapped up the Saelen storyline, and was actually torn for a hot second there over whether to arrest Aden or get his info-- but ultimately my Ryder’s too Just to let killing innocent people slide, even for kett intel. (pissbaby Ryder will def get it.)

and then Peebee was too embarrassed to tell me we’re friends face to face and made Poc do it, and then she called a FAMILY MEETING to say she’s PROUD AND HAPPY TO BE ONE OF US, and I had so many feelings I had to stop playing.

in conclusion: get fucked, romancing mechanic, i can’t believe you won’t let me resolve the world’s least conflict-ridden and most-compatible triangle with the polyamory we all deserve.

PLEASE GOD LET THERE BE ONE FIC OUT THERE. JUST ONE, THAT’S ALL I ASK, I WON’T BE GREEDY. PLS.

[ah17hh]

Shades of Grey of Cheating via /r/polyamory

Shades of Grey of Cheating

About 5 years ago, my wife, myself, and another guy were in a Triad. It was heavenly while it lasted, but the guy ended up breaking up with my wife (she can be a handful at times) but staying in a relationship with me for another month before ending it due to my wife’s incessant interference.

Originally when we started poly, I wanted it to always be a thing we explore together, more swinger than poly but always by each other’s side when we had experiences together. That lasted maybe a week when she met a guy on Tinder and started a relationship but the guy was too straight to have a threesome even if there was no touching. She had that relationship for 3 years before the other one I started off mentioning. He moved in, and I didn’t charge him rent nor make him pay for food or utilities. She would try to keep me satisfied sexually to keep things even, she’d usually put me to bed most nights, but then after we made love and I fell asleep, she’d go upstairs and spend the night with him. She would stay awake all night with him, then fall asleep around 3-4am and end up being woken up by toddlers left unsupervised until they were hungry enough to wake mommy up. I’d wake up alone, then head off to work feeling lonely. When I got home each day, I’d usually walk in in the middle of them fighting about something mostly so they could have make up sex later. I hit a snag in my business dealings and was facing eviction because I was short on rent, he used money he had saved up to get his own place rather then help with rent. That didn’t end their relationship though, at least I’d have her in bed with me most nights but then most weekends, when I actually had time to relax and connect, she’d be gone and I’d be alone. Many times she’d compare me, a tech geek entrepreneur who sits in front of a computer all day to make money, to him unfavorably, where he is ex-army judo master fuck machine. Oh I really came to hate him and resent her for that, she and I had good lovemaking before but he was amaze balls, and our lovemaking after him always left her wanting some other kind of touch or caress from me that he gave her and I couldn’t seem to match it. She got so many threesomes for him, but any time I got even just a date she would start a fight just before so I was in a bad mood and late. He finally cheated on her with one of the girls my wife was going to surprise him with a threesome with for his birthday, which he confessed to her on a Valentine’s Day that I thought would be just the two of us and I had tried to plan for, but that she insisted he be invited to. Ruined all my plans, and I had to be the one she cried to every night and spent a year consoling her through that relationship until they reconciled a bit and became friends with benefits who see each other just a few times a year.

So back to this other dude. I finally get to explore my bi side, and I got to do it with her as I wanted in the first place. I finally felt happy, while it lasted, and when he broke up with her I felt it was within our agreements and even precedented by her past relationship that I be able to explore this one on my own. So I kept seeing him despite her requests that I break up with him, and even scheduled a sleepover medicine journey (lsd trip) with him. My wife begged me not to go as she didn’t “trust him after how he broke up with me”, I told her I was going, that we probably wouldn’t be sexual as we were respecting the lsd journey with each other more than we wanted to explore our lust, but if we were I’d be safe and let her know after. She begged me again, but I just repeated what I said. It did end up with a little bit of sexual connection, but nothing major and I did tell her about it after and reaffirmed my love for her to try to help her not feel any jealousy.

Fast forward to the last 2 years, she brings this up constantly as me cheating on her, as well as a time with a woman I openly had a crush on came up to me and started making out with me, the day after my wife made out with her in a hot tub, which I told her about immediately after and thought we were ok as I didn’t do anything she hadn’t done herself the night before. She told me part of her died that day (we hadn’t decided to be poly yet before the kiss incident, just playing around with a close friend), and that at that point she didn’t feel any marital obligation to me. She never told me that until now, like 7 years later in a 12 year marriage. Now to be fair, she hit her head 2 years ago and got a brain injury, her personality has changed to angry/irritated all the time, and for the last 2 years every resentment she has ever had has come up, and she’s been getting nightmares so all of this comes up just before bed so she doesn’t have to sleep. I’ve been exhausted, frustrated, and completely disillusioned about the magic of our marriage.

Since she’s been angry/irritable all the time (and won’t get help for fear they’ll find some incurable disease or cancer in the process), love making has been exceedingly hard and as such very rare. I think her hormones sensors in her brain got knocked around and so her body is dumping tons of unhelpful hormones in her system preparing for early menopause. She’s threatened a few times that if I don’t just throw her down and ravish her (she’s told her friends I was physically violent with her when I tried that one time, ruining a friendship), that she was going to go out and find someone who would. She did exactly that about 2 months ago, then tried to not tell me for a month, where for a month she accused me of every wrongdoing imaginable, even accusing me of molesting our kids, then bringing up every unspoken resentment over the last 12 years of marriage, most of which I either just wrote out the explanation to, or could easily have been resolved in the moment if she’d just spoken up then. She is not shy, I’m the shy one in the marriage, so I have no idea why she kept those things in, but to be saturated by them all at once, especially after being accused of child molestation, then being told I’d been cheated on, then being told it was my fault for not meeting her sexual needs... then she tells me her reasons for marrying me were more about looking good to her family because she thought she was actually gay and since I am bi she thought I was too, and we could be married and just friends, be each other’s beards I guess, yet here we are where sex is her biggest complaint and so she goes for it with another guy, not a girl, instead of just trying to keep her inside thoughts inside for a night so I can at least try to get hard without her getting insecure that I’m not attracted to her anymore. None of this makes sense and isn’t consistent, I know, traumatic brain injury and underlying pre-existing personality disorder can do that, but I love her anyway.

Of course I’m a bit bitter and probably in a toxic relationship now, but I’m also not the type of man to run when his partner gets sick. I’m sure it’s mostly the head injury and resulting personality change, but she has gotten somewhat better the last couple years and so I keep hope alive that she’ll fully recover

But I really need to know, from the advanced level masters of poly, am I the cheating bastard for being kissed by my crush, or giving my boyfriend a blowjob even though he broke up with my wife? I don’t think so, and I’m sure I probably subconsciously presented the evidence in a way that emphasizes my innocence, so please tear me a new one if I am and poke all the holes in my story... or give my heart some validation and tell me I’m not crazy and I’m being emotionally manipulated by the girl I love who is almost as bad as an abused dementia patient but is recovering. Trying to be a stand up guy but may need to take some time just for me soon and see how it feels to be on my own again if that’s what wants to happen. If I did go that route I could still stay legally married for a year or so, so she could get help on my insurance, but she wants me to get her an RV first so she has someplace to stay with our kids and can run away if COVID gets really bad (paranoia with her head injury maybe?)

Please give me feedback so I can decide on my next action.

Submitted August 02, 2020 at 10:40PM by MoJoe1 via reddit https://ift.tt/39NbRLq