Jealousy, grief and NRE

Tonight its New Years Eve. I spent the afternoon walking around a frost covered field with my best friend/lover discussing a new book he’s been reading about female pleasure. It occurred to me that there are so many questions we all have around sex and intimacy, so much that we are expected to somehow know and be skilled in, all without actually talking to or asking the other person due to some (possibly very British) awkwardness and unwritten rule.

One thing that stood out to me was, when discussing foreplay and what that actually means and constitutes as, that he has never before been complimented on his kiss.

He is a wonderful, attentive and passionate kisser and there is so much that I experience just through the touch of his lips on mine. Words cannot begin to express how entirely consumed and captivated I feel in those moments we share, it feels like lifetimes of stories are told in the moments we connect.

No sex, no genital touching, nothing more is required in these moments. Just a kiss, that speaks a thousand words.

Tonight I’m home, reflecting on the lovely walk (and all the wonderful moments we’ve been open to exploring each other) whilst he spends his evening with his other partner. A woman, with whom I unfortunately don’t get along, which makes our interactions as metamours even more strenuous. COVID has been a difficult thing for everyone in a variety of ways (many much more serious than the ways I've been affected) but my experience has been that polyamory is even more difficult than I’d previously experienced when you cannot touch or hold your partner.

So tonight he spends with her.

New Years is a time of year that I like to take for reflection, to really focus my energy on what has been this year, what there is to learn and how I wish to grow over the coming year. Its very cliche but it is a milestone and with that comes a wealth of gratitude and also a heavy heart trying to be compassionate with myself for everything I’ve overcome.

Tonight I’d love to spend surrounded by the people I love and who love me, but unfortunately 2020 had other plans.

Tonight he spends with her.

I feel jealous, I feel insecure and I feel vulnerable. I’d love to spend this time of reflection together talking and sharing with him, setting new goals for the year ahead together, but tonight he spends with her.

I try to tell myself that jealousy is just an emotion, like any other that comes and goes. And if it sticks around then there is perhaps a need that isn’t being met which requires more attention. This year though I feel that need is touch. That need is to feel the reassurance of his embrace, to feel his lips on mine assuring me that no matter what else, I mean the world to him as he does to me. That need is intimacy of the emotional kind, captured and shared through skin on skin contact. I don't actually feel jealous of the relationship they have, in fact I’m glad that he has someone to explore with in ways I could never provide. They have a relationship unique to them which I do not want or wish to be a part of. It's not her that I want to be, my jealousy is not envy. But it is a need that is going unmet. A need for physical contact and time spent in each others embrace that she is permitted access to whilst I am denied*.

These feelings take over me like a waves to a captive boat in the storm.

*(Due to COVID and my own risk profile being misaligned with theirs).

While simultaneously I feel joy. I feel excitement, nervousness and lust for someone entirely new. A woman that has recently come into my life and given me the pleasure of getting to know her. A woman more beautiful than anyone I’ve ever laid eyes on. A woman who can make me speechless with just a look. Whose assertiveness and quietly confident dominance is enticing. This feeling is vaguely familiar but feels lifetimes ago that I last really felt it. This feeling is NRE. In polyamorous communities the term ’new relationship energy’ is a common one. Its that ‘honeymoon’ phase where the world sparkles a little, days feel just a little bouncier and light shines just that bit brighter. The feeling when you meet someone new and develop a crush. A crush that turns into needing to know everything about them and not being able to say anything but their name as every other word in a sentence.

How is it possible? To at once feel so much sadness over a craving I cannot satisfy whilst also feeling so alive and excited.

Tomorrow (pending negative test results) I get to hold her in my arms and explore her in the warmth of indoors for the first time. I get to kiss her skin and loose myself in ball of anxious shyness. I’m excited and nervous and smiling from ear to ear.

Add in to the mix that I’m also still grieving the loss of a love connection. A fire that burnt so brightly and all too quickly. A wonderful man that taught me so much about myself, about passion, about togetherness. A man with whom we shared tears and orgasms that didn’t belong to our individual bodies, he opened my eyes to entirely new experiences and left me continually questioning who I am, who I want to be and what lead me to where I am. A man I still love furiously and who I wish with all my heart could still love me.

Jealousy, excitement and grief. All simultaneous.

Welcome to the life of a queer non-monogamist.