Weeks Where Decades Happen

A few days after I wrote my last post (what innocent times!), I went to KL with my crush. I was pretty sure that he wasn’t interested and felt stupid about asking him along because it meant 3 agonising days in the friend zone. Well, long story short, I was wrong.

When I came back to Singapore, I had to tell Jon that I now had a new partner. Poor Jon! Having an open relationship was one of the things we agreed on before the wedding in February - but this was way too soon to put it in practice. It was a lot for him to take in.

In April Jon and I went on our hiking trip in Japan, where we had even more Baguio-style Relationship Talks (with more sake and less diarrhea) while wandering across the eerie deadness of the Kiso Valley.

After the trip I met Joel’s therapist. She asked me why there were tears streaming from my eyes when the rest of my face was smiling.

“I don’t know?!” I snapped. “I feel fine!”

“Your body is feeling things that your brain has blocked,” she said. Then she told me log any discrepancies between the brain and body for a week.

Holy shit. Once I started paying attention to my body, it was like unmuting something that had been screaming for a long time. There were a lot of things (I didn’t know) I wanted. My own home. My own fridge, my own bathroom, my own pets. And a divorce.

Maybe my issue wasn’t being torn between two partners, but tension between my need for autonomy vs the pull of relationships.

Since then I’ve been doing a lot of little things to establish autonomy within the current situation.

At home, I moved out into my own room and bathroom and got my own set of toiletries. I cleaned out and divided the fridge into two. Jon and I now get groceries and meals separately by default, except when we make plans together. We also see each other a lot less: I’ve been seeing my friends more and spending weekends with my other partner.

Over at my other partner’s place, I’ve been doing something similar. Bought my own desk and chair, commandeered his spare bathroom. I’ve been feeling a lot more secure since carving out personal space there. Maybe I’m just the kind of person who needs a personal throne to shit on.

I also filed for a divorce. Strange to say, but getting divorced has been a bonding experience. We even celebrated the milestone at Delifrance:

Jon and I have gone from total avoidance to regularly having emotional check-ins. For a while we struggled to define our relationship. It doesn’t fit the standard mould, so even polyamory resources fall short; but neither are we “just friends” in the ordinary sense.

I read Raina Cohen’s The Other Significant Others and we finally found a concept that fit: platonic partners. Apparently it’s trending on TikTok!?

After perhaps the longest 6 or 7 weeks of my love life, I hope the worst is over. For a bunch of complete newbies to non-monogamy, all 3 of us seem to be holding up okay.

Next adventure: buying a flat (again)!