Multiplicity

Communication is the key. Telling your boyfriend what is up is a good
start. ...I would suggest that you have a talk with Jake too.

Oh, not to give you a hard time, but the term 'Alter' is offensive to
many other plural people who consider themselves full persons ;-)

Toni of Mtribe

PS - my boyfriend really only dates one of us.

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*nods* Thats what I'm trying to get at. My other 'personalities'(what would be a good non-offensive term?) have no wish to be involved in this, unless it is friendship with him. They don't have a problem with my actions but they don't want the consequences when they front.(i.e doing anything friends wouldn't, like holding hands)

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It seems to me that the only acceptable solution would be to not have
Jake front when you are with your boyfriend. My boyfriend *abhors* kids
so we try to make sure the kids know to leave front when he is coming
around.

Like any relationship it is based on communication and compromise, except
in this care there are at least 3 people who have to be satisfied with
the solution.

--- Toni of Mtribe

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mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com

"Headmates" works.

Johnny

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tej-agni.livejournal.com

It's okay to call them what you'd like to. If everyone's happy with it then it's fine. :)

-Butterfly

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...Then they should not front when you are with your boyfriend. When they are
doing their things they can front, when you do your things you front.

Talk to them, ok ? See what they have to say about it. Maybe you can work out
some solution.

--- Miri of Mtribe

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ksol1460.livejournal.com

"My other 'personalities'(what would be a good non-offensive term?)"

People? Or what do they call themselves? Ask them.

(deleted comment)

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tej-agni.livejournal.com

I agree with you.

-Butterfly

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Agreed as well. I noted in my comment that it is often considered offensive, but my general principle is to allow people to be called whatever they want to be called, even though it may personally offend others.

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When we were first working to be functional our companion/wife stood up for
a couple people in our system that the rest of us were embarrassed about.
That ended up being the most important bit of advice we had with regards
to getting along.

Not trying to dump on anyone. Just trying to help ;-)

--- Miri of Mtribe

(deleted comment)

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With all due respect, please step off the high horse.

No one is dictating anything to anyone. Just a suggestion.

As far as worrying about talk damaging anyone - please note
that this is a discussion group, not a theraputic group.

Again - we have no more authority than you do in telling people
how to define their terms.

--- Marina of Mtribe

(deleted comment)

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Dr, your degree does not grant you authority here. After a long day of work
we are not up to debating MPD theory with you or anyone else.

I do have the right to say what was helpfull for us. Having someone stand up
for a couple of littles in our system made the difference between having a
functioning system and not. And i DO have the right to say what worked for US.

I beg you to look at what we have written and show how we defined anyone. Since
you are a student dr i also have to say that arrogance has turned many away from
respecting your field. I speak from a personal perspective here.

Anyway, Chill out. You are accusing us of writing things we did not write.

--- Marina of Mtribe

(deleted comment)

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Lol - Bias - Well that was in the past before i married a psychiatrist ;-) I agree
that folks should be able to use their own terminology but as a freewheeling
community folks will say what they will say. I would not argue with anyone in the
theraputic communities.

Anyway i think we can BOTH call this argument as a case of overwork causing
irritability. Pardon me. We are the Mtribe and i am Marina. Pleased to meet you.

--- Marina of Mtribe

PS - know i gave my wife as hard a much harder time about MPD theories than you
here. One of these days we should actually write the arguments down.

(deleted comment)

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Cool.

A while ago i asked my old wife/partner if all dr's were arrogant.

Her answer was - only the good ones.

That is true about unix administrators too.

--- Marina of Mtribe

(deleted comment)

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It must be hard dealing with collegues. Our partner does not get along with many
of her collegue as well. She, like my uncle is willing to go to war over patient
care quality. Both of them have made a lot of enemies that way.

What that community psychiatrist said makes little sense. For the longest time we
did not work in the past as we got better through zen buddhism (via Marsha
Linehan). Even in a purly biological sense what that dr said made no sense as it
is proven that past injuries contribute to present problems.

Anyway, have a good night. We are going to curl up with a book.

--- Miri and Marina of Mtribe

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ksol1460.livejournal.com

Oh, dear God.

Has the woman been able to find real help anywhere?

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ksol1460.livejournal.com

It has to be what's right for you & co. We're pro-choice on integration, and if they want to be called parts, then that is what we will call them.

"People should be allowed to define their terms and write their own rules for how they choose to interact within the body and outside of it."

Amen.

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Glad someone's saying it. It gets pretty annoying when everybody's saying to call them 'people' and not belittle them, but hey, I say call a spade a spade if the spade isn't bothered by it.

Not like she called the rest of us alters, that might be something to let her know can be offensive.

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mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com

Seriously, I read that as Toni informing Cassie of a term Toni didn't think she knew. Sometimes people use unpopular terms about themselves because they feel they're accurate, which is perfectly fine, but sometimes they use them because they don't know any others. Learning the right words for stuff really helped me get my head on straight about Johnny. Maybe it could have been put better, but I say hooray for vocabulary lessons.

Rob

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Well, my bad I guess. I figured if that's what they'd meant, that's what they would've said. I just saw them saying alters was offensive to a lot of people, when the OP didn't call anybody alters. Sounded to me like she was bothered about offense, not whether the shoe fit. It's just what I saw. My bad if I read it wrong.

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mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com

Or maybe I'm the one who's wrong. I was just thinking that if someone had said something like that to me when I first got here, Johnny would have said "No kidding" and I would have learned something new and valuable. (My actual term was "imaginary friend" not "alter," but the point holds.) On the other hand, I can see where that statement might be read as something bad. *shrugs*

Rob

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pthalo

I dunno, what if Jake would say "Hi, it's me, Jake" or something if he shows up when the boyfriends around, or if the boyfriend shows up when he's around? Then the boyfriend would know "okay, that means no kissing/touching" and it's a polite thing to say and can be said before anything happens that might be a problem.

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katullus.livejournal.com

The problem seems a difficult one to face for the rest of your life, but not unsurmountable. I reiterate only what's been said before- communication is key.

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Could just say "Hey, it's [name]" or warn him "[name]'s coming out". That way he knows how to deal with it, doesn't have to get told to keep his hands off.

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linnai.livejournal.com

For us, both of our significant others (one is a system like we are, the other is a singlet male) are well aware of us as individuals and do their best to respect each person. The other system is better at telling us apart and respecting each individual person's boundaries, but the singlet isn't doing bad. He spends more time trying to coax his girlfriend out, but that's understandable too.

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teh-kerry.livejournal.com

Just to reiterate what everyone else said, communication will be important here, but there's no point us repeating what everyone else said, so we'll leave it. (They probably said it better anyway).

As we're only involved with another system, who tend to understand how we want to be treated as individuals, we don't have many problems with understanding. Although there are problems with people changing, and other people not noticing - Liam's gay, and he's ended up kissing Nadine, who's a lesbian (mostly), because Liam thought it was still his boyfriend. But all of this can, as others have said, be solved by communication. (Just be prepared to be asked who it is every 2 minutes... we were guilty of that, at the start, when the other system we know 'came out' to us).

Also, on a completely unrelated note, Lynn's kids are called Cassie and Jack. (I doubt highly that that's relevant, but I thought you might like to know :D)

- Kerry

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sethrenn.livejournal.com

Well, to add to what everyone else here has said, we personally have had problems in the past with SOs who didn't get it about not everyone in the system being equally hands-on. This one guy basically believed that because he was dating "the main person" (or what we were all desperately trying to pretend was a main person, anyway), then he was having a relationship with everyone else in the group, and could basically hit on anyone.

If someone I didn't much care for tried to kiss up to me because I was sharing a body with someone he was dating, I probably would shove him off. If he tried groping me, I'd probably whap him. Some people really just have a hard time getting their head around the idea that everyone in the body is not "part of so-and-so, therefore they're with me too."

~Y.

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tej-agni.livejournal.com

I don't know what I'd do in this situation. It's hard sometimes to have everyone like everyone else. Maybe you can ask Jake for the reasons why he doesn't like your boyfriend. It could be a reason other than jealousy. Maybe he sees something about him that you don't? I don't know. I hope something can be worked out for all of you. Hug.

-Butterfly

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Jake is the type of person who talks to no one by choice. He's had one friendship. He doesn't like people. He works on respect-and the idea that respect is earned-not a given. With that in mind, he is starting to respect my boyfriend-As much as he hates to admit it. He says that my boyfriend is exactly what I needed, and at exactly the right time. I think the problem he has with him is the fact that he's a male and he feels threatened and doesn't want to be hit on.
The boyfriend brought it up-good communication about this subject is starting. We were in a cab so it was short-lived, but he said something along the lines of 'it would take more than this to make me run. It isn't a problem, however it is something we're going to have to talk about and work on'.
So, apparently everythings going much better than I thought it was. My initial freakout was warrented, however recent events have given me hope.

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Hello, and welcome to the community.

Is it possible that you can try and negotiate with Jake about this? I think it would be appropriate to approach him as you would any other person and talk to him about this.

Best wishes,
Richard

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And yes, as Toni of

catskillmarina said, it is more appropriate to refer to people within multiple or plural groups as people, rather than alters. It's considered offensive by many, including me and the rest of my group.

Regards,
Richard (who really should have included this in his other comment)

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Did she call you an alter? This was kinda my point to people above. I double checked, I didn't see her calling the rest of the community alters. How she talks about her own group is her business, if it's what she wants.

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I shall concede that, I suppose. I wasn't meaning to censure her usage and I shan't start a debate about the merits of the term. I don't care to use it myself.

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Thanks to EVERYONE for the welcome. (I didn't want to say this a hundred times and get annoying :P)
The conversations I've had with Jake have been positive, and I'm almost certain we've come to a conclusion concerning this. If he's to front, he has to make his presence known otherwise he has no say in what the boyfriend does. The boyfriend has shown the ability to separate us (Cassie and Jake are the main fronters)however we cannot always rely on his perception of whats going on.
I think its safe to say everythings going to be alright:)
~Cassie~

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Anyway - welcome to the community. Sorry we sparked a debate that created much
smoke and little light.

--- Miri of Mtribe

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Its ok. I've used lots of communication the last few days, and its built the road to this being a positive thing-even though the road will probably be a little bumpy. But-we're all ok with that.
~Cassie~

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