He asked me to marry him.
Of course things changed after that, but it was the changes that took place before that enabled him to want to be married to me that was the best thing he's ever done for me.

Ever since that time I've noticed that he's changed how he feels about things that he thought he had formed opinions about. He's much more willing to give something a try or look at things in a new way than he was before he made the leap into marriage.

Encouraged me to write me.

A year later, I started doing it for a living. I kinda liked that.

My current partner helped me realize that what I've been of a poly mindset all along. The changes from that realization were what allowed me to be more openly poly.

For a long time I had been a very jealous, guarded person. But at the same time, as soon as i would get so far into a relationship I would become unhappy or unable to breathe. I see now that what I was doing was trying to get one person to fulfill all of my needs. When that wasn't happening (because it's IMPOSSIBLE!!!) It made me unhappy, which made whoever i was with unhappy.

Now I can be free to be me! *happy dance*

I'm fairly new at this, can you tell?

One of the nicest things (and certainly one of the things I most appreciate) about several partners (maybe it's part of why I pick them?) that they have done is to believe me.

It sounds simple on the surface, but the ramifications run about as deep as I can think.

In the middle of an argument, a real rolling boil of a disagreement, if I say "I only want to find an answer where we each get what we want, and I don't know how we got to this hot spot, and I don't want to be here, so can we just find that answer without whatever static's been fucking us up the past twenty minutes and then work through the static later, please?" then anyone who is willing enough to believe what I've just said and set the static aside and find the solution... They be gold.

There are millions of little things I could cite. But I think the most fundamental throughout my life has simply been:

"I love you, too".

And that has always changed everything.

- grey

The best thing he has done for me, he continues to do, daily. He encourages me to stretch and try out my wings...he encourages me to fly.

Let me be the nosy little snooper that I am, and not second-guess my motives for doing it. He lets me into every corner of his life, his journals, his emails, his old memory boxes... all because I just like doing it.

How did it change me? It finally made me feel completely comfortable to be wholly and completely myself. It didn't matter, because we had no dirty laundry to hide.

for me it is communicating deeply with each person, to clear up misunderstandings and getting rid of old programming we had.

after this, we are very open and honest and understand each other, and more fun, relaxed.

xo

For most of my life, I walked around believing that what I wanted in a career and out of life was unattainable, or unfeasible for some reason; I had failed too many times, I could never make a real living in New York doing what I wanted, etc. My current husband called me on that; when i said i wanted to do a career in massage therapy, he asked me why I thought I couldn't do it, the proceeded to argue every point down. And somehow or other he made me hear him.

In short, he helped give me a more positive direction in my life, and shook away some of the fundamental negativity I had about my self-image.

(yay feelgood thread!)

Challenged me to heal myself and dared me to be what I want to be.

He trusts me soooo much. And he's been able to help me learn to trust more. I've recently had the amazing experience of feeling fear, figuring out what was at the root of it, and then comparing it to what I believe to be true. And I found that I totally trust that the actual thing that I fear will not take place. This is ~such~ a good feeling, to be able to get there on my own.

This is changing a lot. I continue to integrate our trust for each other an will surely grok it even better in the future, but even where we're at now is such a less fearful place than I've ever known before.