Relative Health
For the nearly three years, M and I have worked incredibly hard to be good partners for each other. It's hard facing the fact that despite all that work, we have not succeeded. But a lot of the problem comes from our radically different experiences of relationships thus far.
M grew up with his mum and her partner plus her ex, plus his dad and his girlfriend, not all in the same house but frequently together. I grew up in a single parent household with a mother monogamously loyal to my dead father for sixteen years.
I grew up firmly monogamous, and became polyamorous as an adult, while M had been interested in open relationships from a young age and had started dating polyamorously as a teenager. Interestingly we both came to it through travel.
We were both polyamorous by the time we met, but it was each of our first time embarking on a polyamorous relationship in such close quarters, and so intensely.
M frequently told me this was the healthiest relationship he had ever had. I told him that it was my least healthy. We were both so intensely committed to radically honest communication, and to extreme growth, which was wonderful. Unfortunately we also both had a Lot Of Problems.
I had depression and moderate anxiety, and struggled a great deal to identify and speak clearly about my emotions. I struggled intensely with jealousy and insecurity whilst with M, more than I have in any other relationship. This was at least partly because I still had a lifetime of monogamous teaching to unlearn, and I am sometimes amazed by the change in me on that front. I was also unlearning a lot of subtly manipulative passive aggressive behaviour, some of which I'm sure I still have to face, but a lot of which is now behind me.
M, on the other hand, had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and ADHD, and struggled to have empathy or patience for others' physical, mental or emotional pain, would take tearfulness or fear as an attack, and fly into rages at unknown triggers. Sometimes he terrified me.
Now he has a lot more empathy for others, and a lot more patience to deal with physical limitations, unfortunately largely through living the experience of fibromyalgia. When I wished he had more empathy for my chronic pain issues, I didn't want him to have to go through it himself to get there. But so it goes.
I was always amazed that M thought of our relationship as unusually healthy, because in my book, screaming matches, unpredictable rages, intensely upsetting arguments every two weeks (for a while), and feeling like a parent a lot of the time are not part of a healthy relationship. To be fair that last one has been present in so many of my relationships so that's not exclusively M and me.
But to him it was the healthiest relationship he'd had, because I didn't do the same things he did, and we talked about the arguments afterwards, and usually worked them out. He was used to relationships where both participants were screaming, raging, losing it.
I was used to relationships where everyone had a firm grip on their temper.
It's amazing to me how vastly different people's experiences of normality can be. My normal involves calm, careful talking with occasional little snippy bits or the odd harsh word, smoothed out by communication. M's normal involves rockets and rage and breaking up and getting back together again. Dash's normal involves never being told you're sexy, or honestly complimented, and passive aggression that rises into shouting (not from him).
It's been strange feeling so much relief since I broke up with M. It's been a nightmare of a relationship at points and a daydream at others. It's the most intense relationship I've ever gone through, and I'm really glad it happened. I'm just also really glad it's not happening like that anymore.