Not sure why I can't get over this.

Hey, everybody. Long time lurker, first time posting.
I'm conflicted and wanted to see if any systems here have experienced the a similar situation and can offer advice. This is going to be long. "Intimacy" and "romamtic relationship" is mentioned. But only those terms.

I'm one part of seven. The body is married. Each inside person has some sort of relationship to the husband. I'm one who is in a romantic relationship with him. I've always been a little (sometimes a lot) jealous of the relationship some of the others have with our husband, but I worked through that and am usually ok now. USUALLY.

A few years ago a new part surfaced. Of course our husband was open to getting to know her on her terms. I had pre-arranged a date night with him, but in the interest of letting everyone (inside and out) get acclimated to a new person I offered to give up my time and let them have a night to themselves. This was not their first interaction but it was the first time a good chunk of time was to be spent together without outside dustractions (work, school, outside children, etc.).

This other part had said she wasnt interested in a romantic relationship with our husband. Our husband was fine with that, as he's never pushed any kind of relatiobship on any of us. He just lets nature take it's course and lets whatever happens organically, happen. The fact that neither of then seemed interested in a romantic relationship is part of why I was ok with giving up my date night. I felt like I was doing someyhing nice and selfless that would benefit everyone.

They ended up being intimate though. I was so angry at her. I felt (and still feel) like I was stabbed in the back and betrayed. I hated this other part for a very long time. I still don't like her, but eventually I agreed to tolerate her and not cause chaos in the system over this. Shortly after the betrayal happened I went inside for a while. I could hear our husband asking where I'd gone and why I wasn't showing up for our Saturday morning coffee dates. Finally one night I came to front and told him why I'd been gone, how angry I was, and how hurt I was. And of course how much I hated this other person for what she did.

He said he understood. He apologized and said if he'd known how much this would hurt me he wouldn't have done it. It's been ... 3 years, I think, since the incident.

The other day I was co-con with K (we typically consider her the host, and she's the one who first met our husband) when she said something to our husband about how I'd really matured, and she's impressed that I kept my word to basically ignore the other part and toperate her without causing issues. Our husband said, "I've always told Brit that I understand, and I do. She had every right to be angry about that situation. But she still puts all the blame on V. She shouldn't. I was there too. I'm just as at fault, but she doesn't want to see that."

I dunno. I am able to ignore this most of the time. But today the hurt kind of hit me all over again. A singleton wouldn't understand. I brought it up to a friend once who said, "Well, it's the same body, so it's not like he cheated. He's in relationships with a few other people in your sysyem, right? You got over those relationships. So why is this one so different?" The thing is, she's not totally wrong. So the only thing I could say was, "It just is "

Inner conflicts are a difficult topic.

I have to agree with your friend. Not only are you all in the same body but you also are in the same brain, in the same mind. Inner conflicts fuel the walls separating the different members of the system.

It is a very difficult stage of working together as a system, to realize that when other system mates experience something happy, YOU can experience it too. They can share the emotions, memories, or you can be co-con with them.

This does not need to feel like they "took" something from you. Just like the right hand does not "take" anything from the left hand.

Solving inner conflicts takes time and a lot of work and effort from the whole system. There are therapists who are here to help you with this kind of situation. You can also find help in books such as "Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivor" among other books.

I have the chance personaly of having had little inner conflict of this kind. When the person I love, love also others, nothing is taken from me. The same goes the other way around. As long as everyone recieves what they need to be happy, why should I stress myself out?

When things get bumpy with my parner, we talk it out. But there is a specific way of talking about it. It goes: "this happened - it made me feel this and that - because it reminded me of that wound from the past - now to make things better i would need this - all in all, what can we do together to make the situation better for both of us?" Talking like that needs a lot of ressources, time, and discussion. But it's worth it.

I hope that my post will be useful and that other persons from the forum will also give you support and advice.

First of all, ArbreMonde, thank you for reading my long post, and for taking the time to respond. I appreciate it.

ArbreMonde wrote:Inner conflicts are a difficult topic.

I have to agree with your friend. Not only are you all in the same body but you also are in the same brain, in the same mind. Inner conflicts fuel the walls separating the different members of the system.

I KNOW this in my head.

ArbreMonde wrote:This does not need to feel like they "took" something from you. Just like the right hand does not "take" anything from the left hand.

That's exactly what it feels like.

ArbreMonde"
Solving inner conflicts takes time and a lot of work and effort from the whole system. There are therapists who are here to help you with this kind of situation. You can also find help in books such as "Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivor" among other books. [/quote]

I miss our therapist. We moved a few years ago. Therapy just isn't possible at the moment. I'll look for that book. Thank you.

[quote="ArbreMonde wrote: When the person I love, love also others, nothing is taken from me. The same goes the other way around. As long as everyone recieves what they need to be happy, why should I stress myself out?

Time is taken. I lose out on time with my hudband. I think what stirred this up agaon is that we go out with friends once a month. These are mostly my friends. I'm almost always the one who attends this event. Last month V told our husbsnd that she wanted to go. And he said that would be fine. So, she went. These are my friends. Tjis is an event that l always look forward to. And yes, she took it from me.

Furthermore, how can he love me the same if he has to love everyone else too?

ArbreMonde wrote: When things get bumpy with my parner, we talk it out. But there is a specific way of talking about it. It goes: "this happened - it made me feel this and that - because it reminded me of that wound from the past - now to make things better i would need this - all in all, what can we do together to make the situation better for both of us?" Talking like that needs a lot of ressources, time, and discussion. But it's worth it.

We do talk like that.

ArbreMonde wrote:I hope that my post will be useful and that other persons from the forum will also give you support and advice.

I jist don't know how to feel better. I mean, i HAD to share him with K because she met him first. I had to accept that he's turned into a daddy figure for our little, because she met him before me and she needs his time. I struggled with those two things for a long time. I didn't mind D because their relationship was different. Then V shows up. And both her and he said they weren't interested in a romantic relationship. She jist wanted to get to know him bevause "it wpuld be a good idea." So, I gave up my time to be nice. I feel like I was lied to. I feel like she was deceitful. And there's nothing I can do about it.

And I guess I'm feeling really insecure right now.
Like, would he care if I just disappeared? I mean, why would he? He has 6 other parts to be with, and some of them do the "marital things."
Would he even love me if it was just me? If I was the one he met first?

Just wanted to update.
With the help of another part I organized my thoughts and used the outline to talk to my husband about how I was feeling, and admitted that I was feeling very insecure about some things and explained why. He listened. He addressed my concerns. He pointed out a particular flaw in my logic (the fact that I'm the only one that has a standing coffee date with him every week), then offered a compromise that I can live with on one of the things I've been upset about. He also pointed out if I had said something sooner about one of the issues, he would have fixed it sooner. Then he spent most of the day with me.

I'm not sure I'll ever be totally ok with what happened those years ago. And I'm not sure I'll ever like that other part. But for now, I'm feeling better. I'm just not sure how to forgive her. And I'm still not sure of her intentions or her sincerity on the matter.

My partner and I both are DID. I'm further down the road of therapy therefore I'm mostly integrated identity-wise (it's odd how my brain went for identity fusion before integrating the traumas but well that's how it is) so I have experienced both sides of it.

The side of "I am many parts in love with someone outside of me" and "I am one person in love of many parts of another person".

I love all of my partner's parts. I celebrate all of them, just like I would celebrate all the body parts and personality aspects of a singlet. When I cannot see one of her parts for a long time, I miss them. I'm happy to spend time with all of them even though I'm not romantically involved with all of them. I see them all as precious friends.

Some of my parts have "disappeared" because of integration and fusion. Meaning that, their identities are no longer separate. It took some time adjusting on both sides (hers and mine). Some of her parts disengaged from romantically interacting with fusing-me because they were not ready for that. It's okay. We still love each-others, just on another mode than romance.

When we organize our activities together, we make sure to consult with everybody inside. Some things we end up organizing it with a few parts co-conscious/co-present. Some things we organize one-on-one.

It might be easier for me to take all of her parts into account all of the time and to reminder her to always consult with everybody inside, because I know how it feels by direct experience. Let us make time for everybody. Let us allow everybody to feel loved and special. Let us heal together. Everybody is important. Nobody is left behind.

You sound like you contain a lot of hurt from the past where in the past you were abandonned or felt like it. And the wound still hurts so you hurt even more when your husband spends time with other parts of you. This might be a clue that some therapy work needs to be done with this, maybe?

Just a feeling based on your posts. I might be completely wrong though. Don't hesitate to check it all with your T, maybe your T will see something more important than my lucky guess based upon a forum post.

I agree with what ArbreMonde has said.

Working on co-consciousness and co-fronting might help you all a lot. Then no time would be taken--you and V would be able to be with your husband at the same time (for example)--to be with your friends, or for physical alone time.

It sounds like there's a lot of work that would need to be done to get to that point, but it might be worth it to not be stuck in these feelings of jealousy and a sense of missing out on things when you could be there also because you're all there in the same body that's having the experience.

BritPlus6 wrote:And I guess I'm feeling really insecure right now.
Like, would he care if I just disappeared? I mean, why would he? He has 6 other parts to be with, and some of them do the "marital things."
Would he even love me if it was just me? If I was the one he met first?

It seems like there's still such a sense of separateness, when the truth is that all of you are essential to the whole. There is no "just you," and who was met first was just whoever was on the surface (so to speak) at the time. You are ALL there ALL THE TIME, and none of you can disappear since you're all part of one whole being. I'm sure your husband would say that he loves all of you and that you wouldn't be the same if any part was missing.

Are there some small, simple activities that you could all do at the same time with your husband, to work on being more co-conscious? If not, maybe that would be a step in a more healing direction?

I just wanted to weigh in and say cocon isn't the only option. I'm a bit of an outsider here because our system refuses to integrate. Instead we follow a "healthy multiple" model. It's an outcome for did that isn't popular but is still valid.

Our way of life requires a level of trust and flexibility that is more in keeping with a pollyam relationship. Learning to love your paramores and metamores because they make your partner happy.

Yes it's bumpy this way. Our protector got front stuck for two weeks due to court stuff. We didn't complain because we understood why she was constantly triggered. In that time she experienced life with our partner as if she were a singleton. When she finally became unstuck our partner tried to make the lost time up to us by allocating more time to persutes loved by and unique to other alters. Our protector (who is a teen) got increadably jelous when here regular date was canceled in favour of another alter. Our partner explained reasonably and calmly that she had only been inside a few days, he was concerned that she would get front stuck again and / or that the alter in question would weeken from lack of front time.( This has happened in the past, not that we physically weeken but that our connection with the front weekens until we can't get there voluntarily and need to be (posatively) triggered front) she felt rejected, hurt that her time was stolen. It took a few more days of cooling down inside and being given second hand (after the event) the feelings of love etc before she saw how unreasonable she had been. For our part we recognise that her jeloucy was valid. Who wouldn't want to retain primary position in a relationship. Who wouldn't feel jeloucy when they "lost" their position in the pecking order, even if that position was only ever ment to be temporary. It wasn't until she had spent time away from him that she was able to understand from our point of view how hurtfull

There are 7 of us, 5 of whom are in a romantic relationship with our partner. We have to portion out our time with him. We have to recognise that life will get in the way. we have rotas of activities that are useualy done but acknowledge that if life prevents those activities from being done then the person who had unscheduled front time needs to give up their rota slot to the alter who missed out.

What I am trying to say is fusing and sharing isn't the only option.

You can stay seperate and use Pollyam as a model for making this work. Pollyam involving a system is called interpolly it has its own struggle because of the world viewing it as monogomy because "your the same body so how can you be jealous it's still you he is snogging" gah singletons just don't get it. But other than that all pollyam stuff is really useful. Avoid the primary/secondary moddle as we found out the hard way that it reinforces harmful thinking for systems (feelings of original Vs others) instead use the Paramore/metamore model.

Tw mentions of sex

For example one of the core pieces of advice for diffusing jeloucy in pollyam relationship is to go on group dates but keep sexy time private unless there is a romantic connection between all partners. To apply this to a system we go blended for selected dates but never blend for sexy time. Occasionally if time has been short we agree to group sexy time but because non of the system are romantically involved the group sexy time consists of rapid switching. That way we don't feal as if we have been intimate with each other but our partner gets to be intimate with multiple of us.

Eliseahorse wrote:What I am trying to say is fusing and sharing isn't the only option.

Sharing and being co-conscious don't necessarily mean fusing.

We're co-conscious to the point we don't know if we can be diagnosed with DID or OSDD anymore. Like, our psych have been recently trained to use the TADS, tried it on us and was sure it would show our DID, but all the example of strong-enough amnesia and recurring dissociative symptoms we can give her are too old (we've been in therapy for almost two years now, most of our examples are from before therapy, or from our first year).

She told us that, for the dissociative symptoms criteria of the tool, we currently barely reach DP/DR (she added that with the examples we gave her, if she had tried it at the beginning of our healing journey, she has no doubt we would have been diagnosed with DID). We still have to finish ~20 questions of the diagnosis tool, but even before starting it, we already suspected we don't have enough symptoms for DID anymore. I know how grounded and coordinate we are, comparing to how we were before. I was a bit surprised our psych even suggested trying the diagnosis tool with us.

BUT we still have separate senses of self. We totally meet the DID level for that criteria. Our child/teen/early 20 memories are still impacted by dissociation. We're still multiple. We're just more coordinate than we've ever been in our every-day life. Even if there's still different ways to see our life and ouselves, and even conflicts, we share everything. On a daily basis, we have amnesia almost only when really triggered, which doesn't happen very often now, or when we dissociate because we're tired.

We have been dating our best friend for almost two years before we broke up (we're still best friends). Two of us were in a romantic relationship with him, a third one was starting to slowly came to date him too ; the rest of the adults saw/see him as their best friend. Our young teens and child alters saw/see him as their best friend too. We never needed to fully switch while with him because all the alters who wanted to be co-con or co-present were co-con or co-present. Usually, it was our main protector and I at "the lead", and the others were co-con. If one of the other wanted some time with our best friend, we would just let them be at "the lead" while we stepped back - but no amnesia, no time being lost. Just an agreement of who will "drive the body" and who will be the passengers. Everyone remembers every moment we shared with him.

Dwelt wrote:

Eliseahorse wrote:What I am trying to say is fusing and sharing isn't the only option.

Sharing and being co-conscious don't necessarily mean fusing.

We're co-conscious to the point we don't know if we can be diagnosed with DID or OSDD anymore.
BUT we still have separate senses of self. If one of the other wanted some time with our best friend, we would just let them be at "the lead" while we stepped back - but no amnesia, no time being lost. Just an agreement of who will "drive the body" and who will be the passengers. Everyone remembers every moment we shared with him.

Nah I'm sorry but cocon is a temporary phenomenon what your describing is not temporary. If I can't take a dump or read a book or eat a sandwich with out being watched experienced and commented on then that's fusion. That level of observation is an invasion of privacy that we all abhor .
If that's what works for your system cool you be you but don't lable it something it is not.
Cocon is a temporary phenomenon that exists only because all parties have consented and only for as long as all parties feel happy in being observed.

Protector