Turmoil and Conflict (mainly relationship issues)...

What about A very long relationship break I mean it'll be hard on cassandra But it sounds like even she may need it The point of your life it seems you are all going through sounds like no relationships just we time.. sometimes it's the healthiest thing to do we time.

You all have gone and are still going through a rough patch
we time sounds healthiest


I might put that on you know your DID when me time becomes we time or is that already on there -Channelle

Please correct me if I'm wrong with any of this.

From what I read, (before there's a riot, please keep reading), all y'all have it pretty good with Mike. (Keep reading.) But he is asking for a commitment from y'all that y'all aren't ready to make. (Or maybe it's just the next logical step - I don't know.) Maybe Cassandra is, but the rest of y'all aren't.

None of y'all are even sure what you're giving up by entering into marriage. (Even Cassandra, it seems.) Getting to a point where you can make an informed choice sounds like a really good idea to me. (So that you can really appreciate Mike for who he is and who he's not too.) You can even explain it like that.

The way I've read it, you all aren't saying that being with Mike (even getting married to Mike) isn't a possibility in the future. It seems that it is only Cassandra who feels like he is her one-and-only, and one of the reasons she is afraid is because he has said he won't wait. But someone said before, but if Mike really cares about y'all, then he'll wait or you'll wait or whatever.

But it isn't as if Mike is the only good guy in the world either.

But one thing I'd like to say here is that I think this must all have been really tough on Cassandra too. Disagreeing with y'all and all. Please be kind to her.

But also let me ask - given all the differences between y'all, is there a person that you feel like you could all agree on? Or could you agree not to be in a relationship for a time? I'm just curious if this is a solvable problem for y'all or not.

sorry if I m out of line here, I haven t read all the posts but from what I gather some want to through with mike and some don t feel romantically attracted.

My opinion on love is that, you don t need to be in love to make a relatiosnhip work.
A relationship is base on mutual respect, knowin each others strenghts and weaknessses and respect those, chosin a project you both can relate to (kids, travels,house whatever)
kindness and room for humour and fun.

If that s the case for most of them, there s no need to end the relatiosnhip.

I feel however trhat this is NOT about the relationship or about Mike,but about the others feelin neglected. It reminds me of a baby enterin a relation, some men get jealous cause suddenly there s less attention for them.

Is there any way you can make them feel appreciated and cared for EVEN when bein with Makr?

Or am I completely missin the point here; IF so, do ignore;

Sendin you the strenght to get through this hard situation and a bunch of daisies to brighten your ay. I may add some pralines

love

Nina 11

tomboy24 wrote:I do not misunderstand you. To us, considering ourselves as a whole and realizing that a few of us are making most of us unhappy is relevant and necessary. (We have already addressed the issue of not being in agreement 100% whether we were integrated or not in other replies). I still hold to the logic that if most of us do not want something, it stands to reason that we should probably not continue with it. We may have to agree to disagree on this point.

i see. well, no problems there.

tomboy24 wrote:I know you don't have contact with Mike. Often when I say things like that, it's meant as a "that's the problem source" comment, not a literal-meaning comment. We have tried to take this up with Mike. He doesn't want an open relationship. We want freedom. So it seems we are at an impasse for the most part.

i see. i still think that it would be best to exercise your own freedom and let him make his decisions for himself.

tomboy24 wrote:

Tunes14 wrote:im also not arguing with this.

I never said you were.

i apologize; i wasnt clear. i didnt mean to imply that i thought you had, i was only expressing my agreement with your message.

tomboy24 wrote:I don't need clarification on what counts as house rules and what doesn't.

on the contrary, i think you do. because the things that qualify as house rules and the things that dont vary drastically from person to person. while many house rules are similar among most if not all people, there are many that vary from place to place - not just based on location differences, and some of the differences may surprise you. especially when you also get into other rules of hospitality - which is where 'house rules' stem from. so think of it as overcautious explanation if you will, but i have been surprised before in the matter.

tomboy24 wrote:
(They're not as dumb as they make themselves out to be half the time).

i know. its the same with the ones over here. but they still qualify, as far as im concerned. haha. (no offense meant to any teens over there. usually dont worry about that being misinterpreted, but looking at how my last post went over, i deemed it useful to clarify myself.)

tomboy wrote:No, he's not going to kick us out, but while we live with him, we have no freedom. We share a room with him, so we can't exactly have people over (well, friends we can, romantic interests, not so much). And even if we didn't share a room, it's kinda awkward and rude to be bringing around other people to the living place that we share with the boyfriend.

yes, you couldnt bring them to the place where you are staying, thats true. but based on my understanding of house rules, you also should not have a curfew. its acceptable to say that you cannot come back between certain times (such as midnight and 6am - so as not to disrupt the home owners sleep), but not staying out of the house overnight is not part of house rules, no matter where you are staying instead - that is part of relationship rules, and that is one of the things i think he could use to scrap.

tomboy24 wrote:Because we can't just start doing whatever we want and not care about him or how he feels about things. That will end the relationship in a bad way, on bad terms, and then even though he might not kick us out, he's going to want us out of there as soon as possible.

it looks like another thing we will have to agree to disagree on. i think hes being overly controlling and if he decides to get butt-hurt over you saying that you are not dating him and arent going to pretend you are, then thats on him. that was him turning this into 'bad terms', not you. i think you dont have a rite to take cassandras relationship away (regardless of what wrongs were done in the past regarding yours - not to say i expect you to use that argument or anything, im just feeding off of things said in the other post). i also think that he has no rite forcing you to pretend your dating him. so in the same way that i am against voting to end cassandras relationship, i am against giving a fuk whether or not he gets butt-hurt when you stop being pawns in his little world view. i see where you are coming from, i just see the need to suck up so much as what needs to go as opposed to the relationship. but i think weve both said our piece and i think we understand one another, so my place to butt in has past.

tomboy24 wrote:We never said nor implied that he would stop dating her if she gets her own place. That's been the goal anyway as part of getting back on our feet and getting a job and sh*t. But we're tired of waiting for that to have our freedom and space.

haha. i went on a bit of a tangent with that one. i didnt think that you did imply it. it was just something that crossed my mind when i mentioned moving out, so i addressed it. i didnt think it was a concern.

tomboy24 wrote:Don't tell me what to do!! You don't like it?? Don't talk to me!!
(Luna, calm down, that was not a personal attack on you).
(I don't care. I didn't like it and it was mean. I can "get" however I want "on" anyone! Just like I have a right to say whatever I want!)

kats rite. i never meant to upset you. you have every rite to act however you want to. and no, i dont like it when people think like that. i dont understand how people can think of themselves that way, and i think its unhealthy for someone to put themself down like that. but there are a lot of things in the world that i dont like. its a fact of life. i dont think any less of you. i am certainly not going to stop talking to you over it - its just not that big of a deal. i still care about what you have to say. i can be a little rough with my words sometimes, i guess, but like kat said, i wasnt trying to be mean. i apologize (and again for anything in this message that may come across as mean, and again for the things i will say in the future that will upset you; because with me, it will probably happen a few hundred more times. but i dont mean to hurt you).

tomboy24 wrote:I want to actually BE single for myself!! That's the problem!! I want to not have to worry about how things are going to affect Mike even though I'm not f*#king with him! I want to be able to talk to who I want, hang out with who I want, and not have him get all butt-hurt over it! And I know I'm out of luck until we find our own place! Not that I care anymore anyway!
(Let me say that she's not upset with you so much as she's frustrated at the situation itself and she feels like she's not being understood but does not know how to say what she's trying to get across in a more clear way, so she's also frustrated with herself).

i know shes not upset with me (at least not because of this particular message - whether that changed in my last message, i wont know until she replies to it).

luna, i think i understand you fine. being in a relationship in general - even if you are not involved, and even if you have complete freedom - still comes with downsides, things you have to deal with. and especially with people like mike, who take the relationship so seriously that anything you do could negatively impact him, and you have to watch out for it even though you never wanted to. its that way with everyone - i have talked about it before as the network of strings. everybody has strings connecting them to someone else. and everything revolves around these strings. these strings are not bad themselves - they connect people, they form emotional bonds and offer support and if you find yourself needing help, you can give them a little tug and someone on the other end will help you. but the closer you are to someone, the more strings you have. and if you are too attached, then there are too many strings - you get tangled up and every move you make is going to pull on too many other strings. you trip over them, and everywhere you turn, there are more of them. thats what your trying to express, rite? you get frustrated because everywhere you turn is another string, another relationship of some kind. and if it was just a few strings to each person, you may not mind that much. but in the case with mike, there are so many strings that you keep tripping over them and they seem to stick to you and you cant get out. am i close? and with mike, he feels like hes broken off enough strings, but you still feel them sticking to you. its a somewhat simplistic view, but it covers the basic idea, i think.

tomboy24 wrote:We heard about this. (And I am refraining from reacting how I truly wish to right now, as it'd be easier to censor everything than try to censor each swear word I'd be spewing).

thats about how i was last nite.


thanks for posting the summarized post there. i did quickly skim over the others, but i dont really have a lot of time, and i put a lot more than i have into posting here. haha. i really appreciated the summary.

in response id like to say that i dont think its fair to cassandra to say that you will come back to mike. first, something may happen with all of you to change that - maybe when you vote on it, you just dont want to do it - maybe you stumbled upon something that, say 90%, of you think is a better option. or maybe something will happen with mike. he may not wait around that long - according to cassandra, there is a chance he will find someone else. and if that happens, you are $#%^ out of luck. so i think its unfair to make that promise, because if you leave, you cannot promise without a doubt that you will go back.

not to say that you dont have the best of intentions; im sure you do, but if you take him away now, you cant promise hell be there to go back to later.

spanky_spee wrote:What about A very long relationship break I mean it'll be hard on cassandra But it sounds like even she may need it The point of your life it seems you are all going through sounds like no relationships just we time.. sometimes it's the healthiest thing to do we time.

You all have gone and are still going through a rough patch
we time sounds healthiest


I might put that on you know your DID when me time becomes we time or is that already on there -Channelle

That is basically what we're talking about. Except we'd like the freedom to still be able to have romantic interests and even act on them to a certain degree, just no actual relationships. Of course any romantic interests (ugh it sounds so girly said that way) take second priority to us, but we'd still like to have that freedom for if it ends up being ok or something.


~L.C. & others


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Nina11 wrote:sorry if I m out of line here, I haven t read all the posts but from what I gather some want to through with mike and some don t feel romantically attracted.

My opinion on love is that, you don t need to be in love to make a relatiosnhip work.
A relationship is base on mutual respect, knowin each others strenghts and weaknessses and respect those, chosin a project you both can relate to (kids, travels,house whatever)
kindness and room for humour and fun.

If that s the case for most of them, there s no need to end the relatiosnhip.

I feel however trhat this is NOT about the relationship or about Mike,but about the others feelin neglected. It reminds me of a baby enterin a relation, some men get jealous cause suddenly there s less attention for them.

Is there any way you can make them feel appreciated and cared for EVEN when bein with Mike?

Or am I completely missin the point here; IF so, do ignore;

Sendin you the strenght to get through this hard situation and a bunch of daisies to brighten your ay. I may add some pralines

love

Nina 11

We feel that there needs to at least be some attraction on some level, maybe not necessarily love, but we at least need to be able to tolerate a relationship with them (so, ok, correct myself- not necessarily needs to be attraction, but ability to tolerate easily). And so far, with Mike, we have been able to do that. But right now, we don't want it anymore. Any relationship in general. It's just not fair or logical at this point with so many of us wanting so many different things and having different interests and trying to work on actually sharing this life (which should include sharing on all aspects of life).

We've TRIED other ways/plans to help us feel like we have a bit more freedom and space, but they haven't worked. (They might work if we had our own place and a job, but we're at the point right now where we're DONE compromising for the most part, we want freedom! Why is that too much to ask for? In order to share the life, you have to share freedom too).


Thank you.


~L.C. & others



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Tunes14 wrote:i see. i still think that it would be best to exercise your own freedom and let him make his decisions for himself.

Um, yes, we would love to, and we have been trying to. That's what we're doing here. But no matter what, while living with him and technically being in a relationship with him, our actions will have an impact on him, even if he tries to not let them, and so we can't just run about willy-nilly doing whatever we want without a care in the world.

Tunes14 wrote:on the contrary, i think you do. because the things that qualify as house rules and the things that dont vary drastically from person to person. while many house rules are similar among most if not all people, there are many that vary from place to place - not just based on location differences, and some of the differences may surprise you. especially when you also get into other rules of hospitality - which is where 'house rules' stem from. so think of it as overcautious explanation if you will, but i have been surprised before in the matter.

On the contrary, I don't think I do. But thank you anyway, I suppose.

Tunes14 wrote:i know. its the same with the ones over here. but they still qualify, as far as im concerned. haha. (no offense meant to any teens over there. usually dont worry about that being misinterpreted, but looking at how my last post went over, i deemed it useful to clarify myself.)

Pssh, it's pretty much impossible to offend me. (Used to be impossible to offend Luna too, but that's changed lately it seems...)

Tunes14 wrote:yes, you couldnt bring them to the place where you are staying, thats true. but based on my understanding of house rules, you also should not have a curfew. its acceptable to say that you cannot come back between certain times (such as midnight and 6am - so as not to disrupt the home owners sleep), but not staying out of the house overnight is not part of house rules, no matter where you are staying instead - that is part of relationship rules, and that is one of the things i think he could use to scrap.

We don't technically have a curfew. That's what I call it because that's usually the time where he's like "I'd prefer you were back by this", (and it's usually the time that he and Cassandra agree on), and he'd rather not have us living with him and then staying the night at other guys' place since then he knows about it and that's not exactly nice nor fair to him, leaving him at home with the knowledge that we're with someone else.

Tunes14 wrote:it looks like another thing we will have to agree to disagree on. i think hes being overly controlling and if he decides to get butt-hurt over you saying that you are not dating him and arent going to pretend you are, then thats on him. that was him turning this into 'bad terms', not you. i think you dont have a rite to take cassandras relationship away (regardless of what wrongs were done in the past regarding yours - not to say i expect you to use that argument or anything, im just feeding off of things said in the other post). i also think that he has no rite forcing you to pretend your dating him. so in the same way that i am against voting to end cassandras relationship, i am against giving a fuk whether or not he gets butt-hurt when you stop being pawns in his little world view. i see where you are coming from, i just see the need to suck up so much as what needs to go as opposed to the relationship. but i think weve both said our piece and i think we understand one another, so my place to butt in has past.

Ok, I might not like being in a relationship with Mike, but this has to stop. So I'm ending this right here and now, for everyone that may be reading this thread, after I address you. Mike is NOT being overly controlling, no matter how much we might feel like he is at times, that's just us wanting more freedom, that's NOT him being unreasonable or controlling AT ALL. He is NOT getting butt-hurt over the fact that we aren't dating him, he is NOT getting butt-hurt over the fact that we won't pretend we're dating him, he does NOT care about ANY of that and DOES NOT expect us to pretend we're dating him or say we're dating him, NOR does he expect us to even like him if we don't, or act like we like him at all. He does NOT treat us like pawns or come anywhere close to doing any such thing.

What Luna is talking about is how he DOES get butt-hurt when we talk to or socialize with certain people we've had issues with in the past (issues that affected the relationship, as in, people that a couple of us have cheated on him with in the past, or people that have taken advantage of us in the past without knowing it because they didn't know Luna had been triggered out and froze (and before it was an alter who was flirting with them)). Now, he has every right to have a reaction to that, but we are honestly tired of it. We believe that if we have gotten over something and are talking and socializing with such people, then no one else, boyfriend or otherwise, should be giving us restrictions or complaining about it or anything like that. We believe that freedom means freedom- including the freedom to talk to and socialize with whoever we want, regardless of anything, and that's what we want. We're tired of having to tiptoe around sh*t and not socialize with people we want to socialize with just because some boyfriend that's not our's is still affected by the things of the past. (And I say "we" for a reason. I personally just hate my freedom being affected at all, even if I could care less about the people with preferred restrictions. Others, however, wish to not have restrictions because they do still wish to socialize with these people. But I am the one they have to get clearance from, so it's not like they're socializing with people that are a risk to us (anymore) because I wouldn't allow that. (That, and things have already been resolved in that flirty alters are under supervision around certain people at all times now, and Luna will never be left alone again in a situation with a male until we can work on her getting triggered and freezing/silently complying with whatever)). (And if you're going to say anything about how we shouldn't socialize with such people, don't bother. These are our choices to make, and we have already taken care of these situations and they are in the past now).





Now, to address the other thing:

TO ANYONE READING THIS THREAD:
Mike is NOT a bad guy, and I do not want to people on here to get a bad impression on here just because we can't agree on relationship sh*t. He is not controlling (though we may feel like it at times, nothing he requests is unreasonable, we just don't like any restrictions on our freedom and don't want any anymore), he is not abusive in any way, he is supportive, he is understanding, he tries his best to compromise and fit our needs, the main issue here is that we feel it would be best for us to not be in any relationship at all right now, and we wish to have freedom for once in our life (without restrictions, or at least, without a lot of restrictions, we accept the "no relationship for anyone" stuff), and we are tired of always being the ones to sacrifice what we want in order to make Cassandra happy.

Tunes14 wrote:kats rite. i never meant to upset you. you have every rite to act however you want to. and no, i dont like it when people think like that. i dont understand how people can think of themselves that way, and i think its unhealthy for someone to put themself down like that. but there are a lot of things in the world that i dont like. its a fact of life. i dont think any less of you. i am certainly not going to stop talking to you over it - its just not that big of a deal. i still care about what you have to say. i can be a little rough with my words sometimes, i guess, but like kat said, i wasnt trying to be mean. i apologize (and again for anything in this message that may come across as mean, and again for the things i will say in the future that will upset you; because with me, it will probably happen a few hundred more times. but i dont mean to hurt you).

Yeah, well, just because you can't understand it and don't do it yourself doesn't mean that people don't have valid reasons for thinking and being that way, and it doesn't mean that we can just stop thinking and being that way. Ooh it's unhealthy- you're talking to someone who used to self-harm, for crying out loud. All I am is unhealthy. Doesn't mean I can just snap my fingers and magically not be. It's not like I like it either and am like, "yay, I'm unhealthy and a whiny little b*tch who hates herself, hooray!". It's not like I strive or want to be this way.

I accept your apology though. I'm not used to having people be like Kat outside of, well, Kat. But once I realize that their words are like Kat's and don't mean to be mean, I'm ok.

Tunes14 wrote:
luna, i think i understand you fine. being in a relationship in general - even if you are not involved, and even if you have complete freedom - still comes with downsides, things you have to deal with. and especially with people like mike, who take the relationship so seriously that anything you do could negatively impact him, and you have to watch out for it even though you never wanted to. its that way with everyone - i have talked about it before as the network of strings. everybody has strings connecting them to someone else. and everything revolves around these strings. these strings are not bad themselves - they connect people, they form emotional bonds and offer support and if you find yourself needing help, you can give them a little tug and someone on the other end will help you. but the closer you are to someone, the more strings you have. and if you are too attached, then there are too many strings - you get tangled up and every move you make is going to pull on too many other strings. you trip over them, and everywhere you turn, there are more of them. thats what your trying to express, rite? you get frustrated because everywhere you turn is another string, another relationship of some kind. and if it was just a few strings to each person, you may not mind that much. but in the case with mike, there are so many strings that you keep tripping over them and they seem to stick to you and you cant get out. am i close? and with mike, he feels like hes broken off enough strings, but you still feel them sticking to you. its a somewhat simplistic view, but it covers the basic idea, i think.

It's not that anything I do could negatively impact Mike, and he doesn't treat it that seriously. It's certain stuff though that I'm tired of. And yes, the strings do explain it well. It's mainly- actually, it's mainly people that are like this in general, not just Mike, because we have a few friends like this too. I'm tired of people caring about stuff that happened to me more than I do (and not because I'm unhealthy), in the sense of they're still holding on to the past and holding a grudge, and I could really care less. I'm tired of people having reactions affected by past things that have happened to ME, not them, when I don't have any reactions and again, could care less. I'm tired of people being affected by sh*t that should be moved on from and left in the past, especially when I've done so already, and it happened to me anyway.

Tunes14 wrote:thanks for posting the summarized post there. i did quickly skim over the others, but i dont really have a lot of time, and i put a lot more than i have into posting here. haha. i really appreciated the summary.

in response id like to say that i dont think its fair to cassandra to say that you will come back to mike. first, something may happen with all of you to change that - maybe when you vote on it, you just dont want to do it - maybe you stumbled upon something that, say 90%, of you think is a better option. or maybe something will happen with mike. he may not wait around that long - according to cassandra, there is a chance he will find someone else. and if that happens, you are $#%^ out of luck. so i think its unfair to make that promise, because if you leave, you cannot promise without a doubt that you will go back.

not to say that you dont have the best of intentions; im sure you do, but if you take him away now, you cant promise hell be there to go back to later.

You're welcome.

Um, we have no reason to not return to Mike. That's the whole point of "no relationships for anyone", including, "no getting involved with someone on a level that could turn in to a relationship", meaning "keep everything simple and non-serious", which means nothing will turn into a possible relationship and we won't be looking for a replacement. (And to be honest, I don't think we could find a better option anyway, least not one that all of us are able to tolerate for the most part or one that can deal with all of us, and that's coming from me).


Ok, see, this is where I start to get frustrated. What is the f*#king difference between dating until marriage (which doesn't make sense to me and most of us), and then dating, planning to get married eventually, and then taking a break before you sign away your freedom forever?? I mean, if you're going to date until marriage, you might as well get married right the f*#k then because you've pretty much already signed your freedom away for good!! That's the main issue here- they want to get married, we would like to have freedom before we let them get married and don't have any freedom anymore (of course, plans aren't set in stone, and we don't talk about it that much because no one wants to assume anything or jump the gun, but I know they want to get married). You can't have us working on sharing a life, and then never give us any actual freedom, and then sign away the freedom permanently for the rest of our life! That's f*#king bullsh*t. And if he truly loves us, he can wait. It's not like Cassandra, Rain, Ray, and technically Cassie won't be waiting for him. I don't see why this is so unreasonable, to ask for our first and last breath of freedom before it's taken away permanently for the rest of our life.


- Kat, L.C., Luna, & others

tomboy24 wrote:We believe that if we have gotten over something and are talking and socializing with such people, then no one else, boyfriend or otherwise, should be giving us restrictions or complaining about it or anything like that. We believe that freedom means freedom- including the freedom to talk to and socialize with whoever we want, regardless of anything, and that's what we want. We're tired of having to tiptoe around sh*t and not socialize with people we want to socialize with just because some boyfriend that's not our's is still affected by the things of the past.

this is the point exactly. im NOT attacking mike, so try to cool it a minute while i try to clarify what i AM trying to say. no, none of this is blame on mike. no, he is not obsessive, abusive or terrible. he cannot help it if he is uncomfortable with you having complete freedom. not his fault, ok, no attack here. but you would not give a fuk if another friend was uncomfortable with it because they are not a romantic partner. you accept that they dont have a place to expect it (whether or not they can help it), and you are not obligated to obey that kind of request or expectation. mike may be dating cassandra, but he is not dating you. you dont disagree with this. he doesnt disagree with this. since he is not dating you, just like that friend i mentioned above is not dating you, he has no rite to expect you to limit your freedoms (again, this is not his fault if he does - he cant help it), and because he is not in a position to expect these things, whether or not he does, you are not obligated to obey those expectations/requests. let me reiterate - he is not evil, he is not hurting you or using you, but due to the fact that you are not dating him, you are not obligated to obey these requests to begin with. you may decide to do so to spare him discomfort, but you are in no way obligated. it is your choice.

that being said, the situation is then with cassandra dating mike, mike uncomfortable with your freedom (which does not make him bad because of the circumstance of you sharing a body), and you limiting yourselves so that you dont make him too uncomfortable - out of respect for him. thats very nice of you. but you are getting to a point where limiting yourself like that is too much - you want your freedom, you deserve your freedom, and they are only getting more serious. you may lose the chance to have your freedom forever. you deserve more and you want more. makes complete sense.

now, because of the relationship that mike has with cassandra, he will not be comfortable with you having that kind of freedom (as is understandable - he is still not being attacked nor is he the bad guy. there is no bad guy here). so your thought is: end the relationship, and when you get on your own, you can have your freedom. you'll come back later and everything will be ok. and you are rite. but the only ones actually in the relationship to begin with get outvoted by people who are not, and dont get to express their own freedom. dating is not marriage.

the better solution (again, this is my opinion, and you are in no way obligated to obey, but i want to express it - more clearly than i have been since everyone is under the impression that i think mike is some evil dictator - which i certainly dont) is to say that you dont want to upset him (which is true), but you want the freedom that you deserve (which is true), and you are going to take it (which is true). then, if it will make him more comfortable to not be dating cassandra at all, then he can choose to call it off and make himself more comfortable - there is nothing wrong with that. or if cassandra feels like its bothering mike too much and he would be better off if they werent dating, then she can call it off. there is nothing wrong with that. however, it is not your place to say "we think it would bother mike less if you two broke up before we did this, so thats what your going to do - we voted on it and you lost".

please correct me if this is not what happened. i am under this impression because you have said that you are too restricted and deserve more freedom. you have said that the relationship is what is limiting you and you do not have the option to just ignore the limitations because mike is uncomfortable with it. i havent seen anything else that makes ignoring the limitations not an option, aside from his discomfort. we have discussed that mike is not threatening to kick you out, is not under the impression that all of you are dating him, and is in no way doing anything wrong or that will hurt you. so it sounds like he is just requesting that you do these things because it would make him more comfortable. so the only reason you do them is to keep him from being uncomfortable, because you respect him. in response to this, i think that it is up to him and cassandra to decide if he would prefer to end it or prefer to deal with the discomfort. not you.

tomboy24 wrote: (And if you're going to say anything about how we shouldn't socialize with such people, don't bother. These are our choices to make, and we have already taken care of these situations and they are in the past now).

quite the opposite. i agree with you entirely. if you truly believe you have things under control and no one is hurt by this, then you have every rite to see whoever the fuk you want to.

tomboy24 wrote:
the main issue here is that we feel it would be best for us to not be in any relationship at all right now, and we wish to have freedom for once in our life (without restrictions, or at least, without a lot of restrictions, we accept the "no relationship for anyone" stuff), and we are tired of always being the ones to sacrifice what we want in order to make Cassandra happy.

it sounds like Cassandra doesnt agree with you on the whole not wanting anyone in a relationship. it sounds like she gets a lot of support and benefit being with mike. she has no problems, she is in a healthy relationship (unlike the host on our end). you do not have to sacrifice for her. but she does not have to sacrifice for you either. based on my understanding (which naturally means that if i am misunderstanding then this is invalid), which i hope i made more clear above, you were sacrificing your own freedom for mikes comfort, and now you are making cassandra sacrifice her relationship for mikes comfort. why is letting mike decide for himself whether to continue or end his relationship with cassandra not an option?

tomboy24 wrote:Yeah, well, just because you can't understand it and don't do it yourself doesn't mean that people don't have valid reasons for thinking and being that way, and it doesn't mean that we can just stop thinking and being that way. Ooh it's unhealthy- you're talking to someone who used to self-harm, for crying out loud. All I am is unhealthy. Doesn't mean I can just snap my fingers and magically not be. It's not like I like it either and am like, "yay, I'm unhealthy and a whiny little b*tch who hates herself, hooray!". It's not like I strive or want to be this way.

i said nothing along the lines of you having no valid reason. in fact, i accept that you do, but that doesnt mean i understand it. i dont expect you to change - not in an instant and if you dont want to, then i dont expect you to change long term either - thats your decision. i only expect from you what you expect from yourself. if i expected more, id be delusional. but i can still dislike something without blaming you and without expecting the world to shape to my preferences.

i do consider it unhealthy, but that certainly doesnt mean that you can snap your fingers and change it. on the contrary, if its truly unhealthy then its garenteed that you cannot snap your fingers and change it. i never implied that i wanted you to. just because i consider a certain trait unhealthy does not mean that thats all you are. again, one trait does not make your entire character, thats why its actions that irritate me, not people. thats why this is not personal against you. because im sure there is more to you than 'unhealthy'.

i also never implied that you liked it. i never implied you decided it. i never implied you have any control in the matter at all. i think that in the future, if its something you want to work at, youll eventually get better - whatever better means to you. but that doesnt mean that you decide to feel this way now.

tomboy24 wrote:I'm tired of people caring about stuff that happened to me more than I do (and not because I'm unhealthy), in the sense of they're still holding on to the past and holding a grudge, and I could really care less. I'm tired of people having reactions affected by past things that have happened to ME, not them, when I don't have any reactions and again, could care less. I'm tired of people being affected by sh*t that should be moved on from and left in the past, especially when I've done so already, and it happened to me anyway.

im in agreement. id be frustrated with it all too.

tomboy24 wrote:Um, we have no reason to not return to Mike. That's the whole point of "no relationships for anyone", including, "no getting involved with someone on a level that could turn in to a relationship", meaning "keep everything simple and non-serious", which means nothing will turn into a possible relationship and we won't be looking for a replacement. (And to be honest, I don't think we could find a better option anyway, least not one that all of us are able to tolerate for the most part or one that can deal with all of us, and that's coming from me).

i understand how you see it, and i understand that the way you are going about it would reduce the likelihood. but as they say - 'the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry'. thats the only place i was going with that.

tomboy24 wrote:
Ok, see, this is where I start to get frustrated. What is the f*#king difference between dating until marriage (which doesn't make sense to me and most of us), and then dating, planning to get married eventually, and then taking a break before you sign away your freedom forever??

the difference is pretty big for you. dating until marriage means that you plan to get married to someone, and it mite be him, but your still testing it out. for you, it means that its the least serious stage of the relationship, and this is a good time to speak up and stretch out without much concern. dating while planning to get married is when you are pretty sure this is the guy you want to marry, but you are not 100% sure, so you are still testing the waters. this is the stage where you had better speak up because you are running out of time and if you dont want the marriage at all, then really speak up because its moving swiftly in that direction. marriage is when you are legally bound to that person and it suddenly becomes a crime for any of you to cheat on this person, regardless of whether you are single or multiple. its when you lose your freedom entirely. i think there is a very big difference in there.

tomboy24 wrote:
And if he truly loves us, he can wait. It's not like Cassandra, Rain, Ray, and technically Cassie won't be waiting for him. I don't see why this is so unreasonable, to ask for our first and last breath of freedom before it's taken away permanently for the rest of our life.

its not unreasonable. whats unreasonable is taking their relationship away completely instead of saying - hey, hold off, we were too busy being nice to have any fun ourselves -have some respect for us and dont make us regret this. and yea, he probably should wait, but considering in another post you mentioned him only having this position because he was a stand in while taking a break from someone else, hes probably thinking about the best laid plans of mice and men too. no offense meant here of course, just something i thought i should point out.