Two Lovers? Oh Yes!

by Leah Shapiro

More and more I am realizing that the only thing standing between me and my complete satisfaction and joy is ME!

Let me give you a prime example.

I’m in a wonderful, juicy relationship with an awesome guy. He’s sweet and kind; we communicate openly, thoroughly enjoy each other’s company, and laugh a lot! He also loves when I tie him up and spank him and is content to be my sex toy, so we are pretty much a match made in heaven! Except for one thing…

He’s having a serious love affair that takes up a lot of his time.

This love affair is not with another person. It‘s with the theater. My sweetie is a professional actor and he is very committed to his craft. This commitment is one of the reasons I was attracted to him in the first place, but it also creates all kinds of problems for me.

You see, I’m someone who likes a lot of attention from her partner. Not in a high maintenance, I-need-to-be-with-you-every-second-of-the-day kind of way. Rather, I like to spend weekends doing stuff together and making dinner at home a few nights a week. When my partner makes spending time with me a priority, I feel like I am important to them. “Quality time” is one of my love languages. This becomes a big problem when my man is in a show. There are rehearsals every night, and the weekends are taken up by performances. At times, all his energy is focused somewhere else and there is not very much room left for me. I learned to accept this reality, but it still bothered me. I wasn’t getting my needs met, and it became very frustrating for both of us.

That’s not to say that there wasn’t an easy solution staring us in the face. We had discussed the possibility of being polyamorous from the beginning of our relationship, but for some reason I was hesitant to go there. I am totally open to the idea of open relationships and have had them in the past, but I was resisting it in this case. The idea of being poly was so appealing, especially the way it was being offered. I could have other lovers, but my sweetie would not–he was already busy enough and barely had the energy for one relationship. I had total permission to do whatever would make me happy, but I still refused to accept it.

What the hell was going on in that head of mine? Why was I not jumping at the chance to have my cake and eat it too?

When I got really honest with myself and stopped trying to blame my sweetie for being “wrong”, I was able to see what was really standing in my way. I was caught up in my middle child syndrome” stuff and some pre-packaged beliefs about what my relationship was supposed to look like. I held a story in my mind that I said, “I don’t get enough attention from the people closest to me, I am not important, and I don’t matter enough to be the priority”, and that is exactly what I was experiencing. On some level, I’d also bought into the pre-packaged belief that one person is supposed to meet all my needs. Like that could ever happen! It wasn’t possible for me to see it any other way while I was standing so firmly in these stories.

These thoughts had me all screwed up and were the only thing standing between my happiness and me!
Since I’m 100% committed to feeling good and living My Kick-Ass Life, I decided to ditch those old, limiting stories and empower myself to be in charge of my own happiness. It is my job to make sure that

I have everything that I need to be happy, and finding myself another lover is the perfect solution. I don’t want to give up my current sweetie because what we have rocks, and I don’t have to! I’d rather stop restricting myself and open up to finding another relationship that enhances my current one.

I love the freedom I have found now that I have gotten out of my own way and given myself permission to have my cake and eat it, too!