Dating with DID Questions
So I am bored and am rebelling and not wanting to sleep, so I felt I would answer some of the questions from this post about dating with DID. @casperthefriendlysystem
Are you, someone in your system, or you in a relationship?
Our system is engaged to a singlet. He’s our fiance.
Is/are your partner(s) your entire system’s partner or just yours?
That can be a bit complicated in terms of terminology. “We” are all his partner in the sense of life partner and we recognize that our system as a whole is in a committed relationship with him of some form. With that being said, if you mean partner as in romantic partner, then that would be only select members of the system. The rest of us see him as a life partner.
Is/are your partner(s) also a system?
No but his mom is though lol
Is everyone in the system allowed to have partners?
Nope. We couldn’t do that on the basis of how our relationship works and also that as a system, dating multiple people would be a real headache for us. One relationship takes enough effort as it is.
Do you consider yourself monogamous or polyamorous?
I think all of the alters are monogamous or monogamous leaning. It hasn’t been a huge point of discussion, but I guess Aderis and I aren’t straight monogamous. With that being said, I don’t think any polyamorous tendencies of either of us would extend beyond having an inner world relationship and real world relationship with our fiance.
Do any of your alters have different sexualities? How do you approach that?
Yep. To be fair, most of the system is aspec or bi / pan and I’m the only one that isn’t (excluding littles and parts we don’t know too well.) I identify as a gay male and am only interested in male presenting individuals.
It doesn’t come to be too big of an issue since most alters either don’t care much about their sexuality or are very flexible with taste. Personally, I’m lucky our partner is male as well, but I also don’t have any particular interest in anything more than a life partnership with him as it is so it doesn’t change much in that regard.
Are any alters aromantic? (And if you have a collective partner or partner system, how do you handle that?)
I don’t really think any of us are aromantic to my knowledge.
Were you dating someone when you realized you were a system? (Feel free to share how it went)
Yes and no. We were aware of having parts since a year or two before we started dating our S/O, but also had rejected, denied the system, and “shut it down” as being aware of the system had caused a lot of issues that don’t need to be delved into. With that being said, we were convinced it was some “silly delusion” and “elaborate self-convinced lie”, particularly since we didn’t know about DID or OSDD at the time.
We ended up getting the idea mentioned in therapy a few months after dating, then diagnosed two years later. It honestly isn’t much of a story as our fiance pretty much just went “Ah that makes everything make a lot more sense” particularly since Aderis was... a bit obvious and problematic at the time. Obvious as in straight up saying she wasn’t Riku and doing toxic shit back when our communication and grasp on DID was worse. Realizing that this was more than a “weird thing Riku keeps doing” or some “made up play game” of sorts just really helped navigate it and see how to work it into our relationship.
What are your most important questions/rules in regards to your system when it comes to dating someone new?
Haven’t dated anyone new since we’ve been diagnosed so we haven’t been in the dating scheme as a system. If we get there, we will get there.
How do you feel about marriage?
Personally? I don’t know, the idea is odd since I really do like my space and independence, but I’m not against it. Riku likes it a lot, the rest of the system either like it, don’t mind it, or are indifferent. It is something we as a system plan to go forward with eventually.
If you want to or currently do live with your partner, how do you handle switches? (Do you share that someone has switched and if so, how? Do you have certain things that different alters wear to indicate they’re in front?)
We don’t *live* with him, but we have spent weeks living together and we spend a lot of time around him. We don’t really announce switches unless one of us just finds it amusing or wants to. Sometimes we don’t even notice our switches so it wouldn’t be practical anyways.
For us, really our fiance just can tell pretty quickly pretty easily may that be from slight facial expressions, how we walk, tone recognition, word choice usage, etc. I don’t know if that is particularly unique, but he is very very good at picking up when we are dissociating, switching, when we have switched, and is pretty good at even identifying the part that is out very quickly so we don’t really need any subtle indications.
Would/do you prefer to share a bed with your partner or have a separate bed?
Separate bed personally, but the parts that do see our partner as a romantic partner would never let that pass. Practically, we always share a bed.
